Proposition 33’s Price Setting Controversy, Lawsuit to
Rewrite Proposition 33 Fails, Joseph Spends $8.3M
A proposition on the November ballot
in California is getting a lot of attention
from people on both sides of the insurance pricing issue. However, a lawsuit
filed by supporters of Proposition 33 in
late July over the official wording of
the measure has been thrown out by a
California Superior Court judge.
Proposition 33 is an initiative
aimed at maintaining discount auto insurance for people that switch car insurance companies but still keep
continuous coverage. And it happens to

be backed by the chairman of Mercury
General Corp to the tune of $8.3 million.
Basically, for each year you are
with your insurance company and are
continuously insured, you get a loyalty
discount, but if you switch companies,
you don’t. So, say you are with Allstate
and you switch to Nationwide; even if
you have been continuously insured
since you were 16, you will not get a
discount for continuous coverage. This
See Proposition 33, Page 54

For CAA members that are not
aware of this program, State Farm
launched a parts bidding pilot program earlier this year with 158 of their
Select Service direct repair shops.
These shops are required to source
parts from vendors through PartsTrader, using their web-based parts
procurement program in which vendors bid for the order. State Farm has
stated that their new program should
improve parts availability, process efficiency, order accuracy, and create a
better experience for the customers.
Although it is still in a pilot test,
all indicators show that this program
See PartsTrader, Page 61

Change Service Requested

P.O. BOX 1516, CARLSBAD, CA 92018

The California Autobody Association
released the following statement titled: CAA Has Concerns with State
Farm’s Parts Bidding Program; Will
Shops Only Choice be to Adapt &
Survive?
CAA’s Executive Board has been
evaluating the State Farm Parts Bidding program over the last few
months and has concerns with the anticipated roll-out of their parts bidding
program in California.
This program is currently in a
pilot test in four small regions, Grand
Rapids, MI; Tucson, AZ; Birmingham, AL; and Charlotte, NC (but not
in California as of yet).

The California Department of Insurance (CDI) held a hearing Aug. 9 in
Sacramento to review newly proposed
regulations to clarify “workmanlike
auto body repairs” and the use of aftermarket crash parts. The Department
says the proposed regulations, under
Article 6.5 of the Insurance Code, Unfair Practices, are meant to provide increased protection for the public from
“financial and physical harms caused
by inferior repairs or defective aftermarket parts and to maintain insurer
accountability in the process.”
The Department of Insurance expects that the proposed regulations
will create only insignificant cost impacts on insurers, but insurers dispute
this.

The proposed changes are meant
to clarify what it means to prepare an
estimate in an amount sufficient to
have repairs completed in a “workmanlike manner.” The existing problem, according to the department, is
that when a manufacturer or estimating provider outlines a procedure to
complete a particular repair, “the insurer may refuse to include the time or
parts necessary to complete the repair
in a way that is compliant with the repair standard in the estimate. This
causes the estimate prepared by the insurer to be insufficient to comply with
the statutory requirement.”
The regulations clarify that insurer-written estimates must be preSee CDI Hearing, Page 12

NACE-CARS (ASRW) is Oct. 10-13 in New Orleans
Full Schedule of Courses, see p. 27-31

Insurance Lobby Says Proposed Regulations from CDI
“Damage Ability to Control Costs”
Industry trade groups went to the California capital to protest the state Department of Insurance’s (CDI)
proposed regulations governing autobody repairs and the use of aftermarket replacement car parts. Officials
issued a notice in June (see autobodynews.com) that it was seeking to
change state standards of repair and
use of aftermarket parts by clarifying
insurers’ obligations during the repair
process. Officials called it an effort to
address “disputes regarding the true
cost of repairs of damaged vehicles
and the applicable repair standard”
that “continue to negatively affect the
claims-handling process.”
The Property Casualty Insurers
Association of America issued the following news release in response to
CDI’s proposed regulations:
“New regulations proposed by
the California Department of Insurance could severely damage automo-

bile insurers’ ability to contain auto
body repair costs by removing checks
and balances from the system. Consumers will pay the price for these biased regulations that favor body shops
and original equipment manufacturers
through more expensive auto repair
costs that could eventually increase
premiums, said the Association of
California Insurance Companies
(ACIC). ACIC testified in opposition
to the regulations REG-2011-00024
during a hearing at the California Department of Insurance in Sacramento.
“These regulations essentially
allow the auto body repair shops to
“name their own price,” charging
whatever they want for auto repairs
and insurers will be required by these
regulations to pay,” said Armand Feliciano, ACIC vice president. “Insurers pay for approximately 90 percent
of the auto body repairs in the nation.
See PCI Objects to CDI, Page 10

SOUTHWEST, www.autobodynews.com/news/regionalnews/southwestern-news.html
PARTS ACT Heard in US House of Representatives
NWLCRA Discusses PartsTrader at August Meeting
Service King Acquired by Private Equity, Management, Employees

GREAT LAKES, www.autobodynews.com/news/regionalnews/great-lakes-news.html

All six Caliber Collision Centers in
Orange County have raised hundreds
of food items and cash donations for
Irvine-based Second Harvest Food
Bank of Orange County after a twoweek food drive.
The food drive will help Second Harvest provide about 3,612
meals to local families throughout
the county. In addition to locations
in Fountain Valley and Irvine, Caliber Collision Centers also has a location in Irvine.

CAWA Names 2013 Officers

The California/Nevada/Arizona Automotive Wholesalers’ Association
will install its 2013 officers at its annual meeting during Industry Week in
Las Vegas on October 28. CAWA will
install the following individuals to
serve as officers of the board for the
2013 year: Chair of the Board Ed
Jimenez, Riebe’s Auto Parts; Vice
Chair of the Board Ron Aparicio,
Walker Products; Treasurer Ward
Myers, Worldpac; Secretary Greg
Livingston, CARQUEST; Immediate
Past Chair of the Board Steve Sharp,
Worldpac.

New Look Collision Wins
Perfect Google Rating

New Look Collision Center in the
Henderson and Las Vegas valley
area is excited to announce that
they received a perfect score, 30/30,
on Google Plus Local.
Google Plus Local asks customers to rate and review businesses based on their experiences.
Amongst the many Las Vegas Body
Shop reviews, New Look Collision
Center’s Google Plus Local profile
is in a league of its own—even after
numerous reviews, they have no
negative ratings and 100% praise.
Contributing to their 30/30 rating is New Look Collision Center’s
expertise in frame and unibody repairs, collision repairs, and color
matching. Since 2004, these auto
body experts have offered a lifetime
warranty on all collision repairs,
guaranteeing a brand-new looking
car after every service. They also
provide free estimates for every
project they undertake and help
with insurance companies.
New Look Collision Center’s
perfect score comes from their excellent reputation with auto-body
repairs for all foreign and domestic
vehicles, including luxury cars and
SUVs.

Inland Empire CAA Features Frank Terlep at Meeting

The Inland Empire chapter of the California Autobody Association will host
its next chapter meeting on Wednesday, August 29 at its new location, Don
Marco’s Restaurant, 10276 Foothill
Blvd. in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.
The guest speaker will be Frank
Terlep, CEO of Summit Software and
Marketing Solutions, who will update
shops with information about current
digital marketing
tools. Terlep says
it’s no longer
“good enough” to
just have a website. His topic is
“Digital Marketing = More Customers, Revenue
and Profit.” TerFrank Terlep
lep says small
businesses that are successful digital
marketers utilize multiple digital marketing tools, techniques and technologies to capture service and retain more
customers, revenue and profit. Frank
will introduce 10 digital marketing
and retention tools, techniques and
technologies that will help capture,
service and retain more customers,
revenue and profit.
Frank Terlep often speaks on digital marketing, communications,cus-

tomer retention, loyalty, technology,
and lean business processes. Over the
past 25 years he has spoken at dozens
of automotive industry conferences,
events and meetings, including NACE,
SEMA, and NADA, and international
conferences such as the CARSTAR
franchise and Collision Solutions Network conferences, as well as AKZO,
PPG, Sherwin Williams, and BASF
meetings and conferences, and several
CAA, AASP and ASA associations
meetings as well.
For more information and to
RSVP, contact Cindy Shillito, Southern California CAA Chapter representative at (714) 944-4028 or at
radiatorgirl@socal.rr.com.
Please
RSVP by August 24.
Registration will be from 6-6:30
p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:45
p.m. Terlep will speak from 6:30-8
p.m. Cost is $30 for CAA members or
$45 for a non-member. Cost is $150
for vendors.

Read all our Regional
Editions Online at:
www.autobodynews.com

4 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

Driscoll Appointed to CAWA
Advisory Council

John Driscoll of Manufacturers
Reps has been appointed to the
CA/NV/AZ Automotive Wholesalers Association’s (CAWA) 2012
Manufacturers Advisory Council.
Driscoll is based in southern California and has been an independent manufacturer representative
since the early 1980s. He is a graduate of University of Southern
California and holds a degree in
accounting.
“We are pleased to welcome
John to the CAWA leadership and
look forward to his participation and
contributions to the automotive aftermarket industry out west,” said
CAWA board chairman Steve Sharp
of WORLDPAC. “We are pleased he
has stepped forward to give something back to our industry, through
his commitment to CAWA.”
CAWA is a regional automotive aftermarket trade association,
which represents auto parts jobbers,
warehouse distributors, retailers,
manufacturers and manufacturer
representatives in California, Nevada and Arizona. The Association
provides education, legislative, regulatory and business support to the
industry and its membership.

Rare Ford GT Worth $250K
Found Stripped in Vista

A rare sports car worth $250,000 reported stolen in San Diego County
on July 10 recently turned up in
pieces. The car was stolen from a
Rancho Santa Fe storage and its parts
were discovered inside a Vista warehouse. San Diego police said the
2005 Ford GT was found stripped.
SDPD Sgt. Jim Kistner said
the transmission, the frame and the
engine were gone. He also said all
that was left were small pieces that
had been cut up into even smaller
pieces. Kistner said the engine of the
Ford GT alone is worth about
$40,000. Its frame costs $90,000. A
stolen Porsche also was found.
Police have suspects, but no arrests have been made.
Paul Amato, owner of Amato’s
Auto Body in Sorrento Valley, told
10News, once he heard the GT was
stolen it was good as gone.
“I had a feeling (it would be
chopped up) or someone was going
to joy ride it and it was going to be
wrecked,” said Amato. He said no
thief is stupid enough to sell the car
as a whole.
“That car, you can’t sell it because it’s got the VIN number and a
VIN tag,” said Amato.

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 5

Sacramento Teen Gets Make-A-Wish Transformation of his BMW
Golden State Collision Centers Inc. of
Orangevale, CA and the Make-a-Wish
Foundation revealed a renovated
BMW to a local Make-a-Wish teen on
his 17th birthday on July 27.
The young man was presented
with a complete transformation of his
1993 BMW 318i, coordinated through
Golden State Collision Centers, Inc.
and the Sacramento and Northeastern
Chapter of the Make-a-Wish organization.
Alex Koryayev received the wish
when his BMW, completely transformed, was revealed to him on his
birthday at the Golden State Collision
Center, 9439 Greenback Lane, in Orangevale, CA.
Golden State Collision Centers,
Inc. was contacted by the Sacramento
Make-a-Wish chapter in the fall of
2011 to ask for assistance in granting
this wish for Alex. A native of Russia
and local West Sacramento resident,
Alex suffers from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The wish project was put on
hold, however, as one thing had to
happen first—he needed to get his
California driver’s license.
Golden State Collision Centers

collaborated with numerous businesses in order to completely restore
the vehicle. Repairs included a complete paint color change, body work,
new upholstery, stereo and glass installation, and new wheels.

Recipient, Alex Koryayev, (in red hat and shirt), surrounded by the technicians and team members
who contributed to the transformation of his BMW

“We were approached by volunteers of the local Make-a-Wish chapter to help out on Alex’s wish to
refurbish and recondition his 1993
BMW. As a company, we are always
in search of ways to help our community and its members. When we heard

Scott’s Body Shop Certified by ‘Monterey Bay Green’

For Scott’s Body Shop in Santa Cruz,
CA, thinking green started a few years
ago as more car parts were being made
of plastic. Rather than spend hundreds
of dollars on a larger trash container,
the owners changed their operations to
recycle more and waste less. That
mindset led to their recognition as the
first body shop in the city of Santa
Cruz to be certified green. The first in
the county to be certified green is Professional Touch in Scotts Valley. Both
“were exceptional and went above and
beyond” the requirements, according
to Jo Fleming of Monterey Bay
Green Business, the certifying entity.
“We felt our customers would be
receptive,” said Scott’s general manager Bobby Scott, 45, eldest son of
the founder. “It’s good for the environment and it’s saved us money.”
After the body shop began separating plastic parts for recycling at the
city’s resource recovery facility, Scott
noticed trade magazines writing about
how companies were “going green”
and figured it was worth exploring.
“Once we got the list of what
was required, we saw we already had
some of it done,” he said, citing the
energy-saving lighting the body shop
installed under a PG&E incentive program. “We saw immediate improvement on our bottom line.” He

about this wish, we jumped on board
to spearhead the refurbishment of
Alex’s vehicle,” said Dave Finkelstein, owner of Golden State Collision
Centers, Inc. “We are delighted to
partner with the Sacramento chapter

estimates the cost was $5,000 to
$8,000, not counting the lighting.
For example, when a car is in a
wreck and is dripping anti-freeze or
oil, the question is how to keep those
contaminants from getting in the
ground. The solution: Specially designed pans to catch those fluids.
Leftover silver, black and blue
paint is mixed together for use as undercoating. Instead of paying disposal
charges for six 55-gallon waste drums,
Scott’s is paying for three. New technology at Scott’s includes disposable
paint gun liners which use less cleaning solvent, and a vacuum sanding
system to contain sanding debris and a
covered wash pad for washing cars.
Scott also noted a switch to waterborne finishes, which are expected to
reduce emission of air pollutants.
“A lot of our industry is driven
by accidents,” he said. “While they’re
here, people say, ‘Let’s fix up these
things, I’m going to keep the car for
five more years.’ ”

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6 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

of Make-a-Wish in making this wish
come true.”
According to Rebecca Endres,
Customer Relations Manager with
Golden State Collision Centers, “Approximately $15,000 went into the
transformation and there were many

local businesses who helped in this
project. Alex was extremely grateful
and very emotional at the time of the reveal. I think he was also shocked at how
many community and business leaders
showed up at this amazing event.”
Finkelstein said this idea has blossomed into Golden State’s “Make-aWish in May” campaign, “an annual,
month-long program advocating the
Sacramento Chapter of Make-a-Wish
and designed to benefit multiple local
families in making wishes come true,”
said Finkelstein.
“Our hopes are that our 2012 contribution of $5,650 resulting from this
campaign will provide multiple benefits for the families served by the
Sacramento Make-a-Wish chapter.”
Local vendors included Tow Pros,
Marco Muffler, AutoCare by Kenely,
Fine Line Trim, Keystone/LKQ, Car
Quest, Marvelous Tint Solutions, Aero
Mobile Lock, Valley Motor Works,
Transparent Auto Glass, Color Supply,
Gary’s Airbags, DDI Mobile Detailing, Roseville BMW, and employees
of Golden State Collision Centers,
Inc. donated their time and services as
part of this program.

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 7

Electronic Proof of Insurance Raises Privacy Concerns

Lawmakers in California say the
heavily supported AB 1708, which
would legalize electronic types of insurance proof, raises privacy concerns
about authorities’ access to personal
information stored on mobile phones.
Three unanimous votes pushed the
legislation through the state Assembly
in less than two months, and the Senate recently amended the bill again on
July 5. The legislation was introduced
to keep up with new technology.
Some concerns are related to information stored on mobile phones
that, when presented to authorities,
could be accidentally revealed when
a driver offers the phone as proof of
coverage.
“At issue … is what can be done
with the information, especially under
the laws of criminal procedure,” the
legislative analysis stated.
Lawmakers added a provision
narrowing authorities’ access to information on the phones, prohibiting
them “from viewing any other content
on the mobile electronic device.”
Authors of the analysis warn that
the state’s Proposition 8 from 1982
and the Fourth Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution give authorities
greater power over criminal evidence
they can seize.
“Practically speaking, this might

mean that any person who hands their
cell phone over to a peace officer voluntarily risks disclosure of private information accidentally revealed, even
though AB 1708 only narrowly authorizes peace officers to view evidence of financial responsibility,” the
analysis states, adding that there have
been reports of some officers accepting electronic forms, at their discretion, due to the vagueness of the code
sections that cover proof of insurance.
Many insurers already make
electronic proof of coverage available
instantly after a driver buys a policy,
whether it is through a scanned image
of the policy card or coverage documents that can be uploaded and displayed on a mobile phone.
“With more and more companies
connecting with their customers and
providing services via mobile applications, it seems that now is the time
for the state of California to provide
the same convenience to their customers—the people of our state,” the
analysis stated.
The bill is backed by industry
regulators in the state, the Association
of California Insurance Companies
and the Personal Insurance Federation
of California, which expressed support in the analysis of the bill because
it provided a “green” option.

8 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

Maaco Auto Body & Paint Holds Summer Internships

Maaco Auto Body and Paint, an auto
body and collision center in Fremont,
recognizes that the country is in desperate need of jobs and that young
people have been especially hard hit
by the recession. Youth unemployment is much higher than the general
population, but they still need opportunities to gain experience and move
into the workforce. To provide such
experiences, Maaco Auto Body and
Paint has taken the initiative to participate in a summer internship program.
“The body shop business is fun!
You get to participate in the dramatic
transformations from ugly, faded and
damaged to a beautiful, shiny and
new-looking car,” Frank Barnard of
Maaco Auto Body and Paint said.
Since 2009, Maaco has partnered
with local schools to provide summer
jobs and valuable work experience to
youths between the ages of 16 and 21.
Past interns have included both boys
and girls, with several students coming from the California School for the
Deaf, Hayward Adult School and
Alameda Community College. The
program is administered through the
Hayward Adult School, with Maaco
Auto Body and Paint having hosted
six youths through the program in the
past three years.
“They give an opportunity to

high school age kids to intern at the
shop so they can thrive! How cool is
that?” Colin Piotrowski, a job placement specialist for the California Department of Education, said.
The interns at Maaco Auto Body
and Paint don’t just sweep the floors
(although they do that, too), but are
given the opportunity to learn handson and side-by-side with Maaco expert technicians. They learn to remove
and reinstall parts, recondition peeling paint, repair scratches, and mask
and prepare cars for painting. They
are not allowed to complete critical
repairs on customer vehicles, such as
bodywork or painting. They do get to
see how these processes work and
learn if auto repair work is a good career fit for them.
The California School for the
Deaf has presented Maaco with a special recognition plaque for its “Outstanding Contribution to the Job
Placement Program.”

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Sonoma Shop Owner Gives Wheels to Prosper By
Dino DiGiulio of Sonoma, CA started
repairing cars at 14 and knew right
away that he liked working on autos.
After high school, he took a job in an
auto body shop detailing cars. In
1990, at the age of 21, he took every
penny he had and opened his own
1,800-square-foot shop, Body Best
Collision Center, on Sonoma’s 8th
Street East. He had one employee.
Today the shop has grown to
12,500 square feet and DiGiulio employees 14 people.
A few years ago, DiGiulio started
thinking about giving back to the
community. “I have such loyal customers,” he said.
Attending a management conference, he became friends with Jody
Gatchell, owner of A&J Collision, an
auto body shop in Conway, AR.
Gatchell had started a program
whereby he fixed up and donated a
used car to someone who needed it as
a way to market his business.
DiGiulio decided to do the same
in Sonoma, naming the program
“Wheels to Prosper.” Last year he
fixed up one of his loaner cars, a 1999
Buick Century Ltd, with 68,000
miles. He wanted to give the car to a
“worthy” person, which he decided
meant someone who spent considerable time to help others.

“That has the most impact on the
community,” DiGiulio said. “People
who go over and above the call of
duty when it comes to helping others.
Someone like that deserves to win a
car if they need it.”
After soliciting names from local
residents and going through them with
a committee of community leaders, a
winner was chosen: Lisa White, a
mother of three, soccer coach, and
Sunday School teacher at St. Andrew
Presbyterian Church. A pharmacy
technician at Sonoma Developmental
Center, White had been unable to afford paying to fix her own car after it
broke down, something that made her
life difficult.
Later that year, DiGiulio gave
away a second car.
“The Wheels to Prosper” giveaways were so popular that he wanted
to give more cars away and he wanted
to get other auto shops involved.
In late July, DiGiulio gave away
three more used cars and lined up 15
shops across the country to give away
cars that same day.
“It’s a way to pay it forward,”
he said. “It’s amazing to see people’s
emotions when they win the car,
people who have little, but who sacrifice their time to help others. I’m
happy to help them.”

Mullin Museum Debuts 1939 Bugatti Coachbuild
The long-awaited debut of Jean
Bugatti’s final masterpiece, completed after 73 years, was finally unveiled at a motorsports gathering on
August 17.

The Mullin Automotive Museum, a Southern California institution devoted to the preservation of
French art and automobiles from the
Art Deco era, announced the unveiling of the virtually completed coachbuild of Jean Bugatti’s famed 1939
Bugatti Type 64 Coupe Chassis
#64002 at The Quail, a motorsports
gathering held on August 17 in Monterey, CA.
First designed in 1939 by revered
designer and engineer Jean Bugatti
(1909-1939), Chassis #64002 was
never finished due to Bugatti’s tragic
death during the road test of a Bugatti
Type 57. After years of extensive research, planning and coachwork

build, this event marked the first time
in history Jean Bugatti’s final chassis
will wear a streamlined, handcrafted
body, a vision left unfulfilled for 73
years.
Created in collaboration with
the Mullin Automotive Museum,
Stewart Reed Design and Automobile Metal Shaping Company, the
new body pays homage to Jean
Bugatti’s original concept. The handformed body, crafted using many of
the same coachbuilding techniques
employed in 1939, features numerous original styling cues including
iconic papillion doors and an intricate riveted body structure.
“We’ve dedicated much of our
efforts at the museum to honor the
Bugatti family and the marque, but
never have we done something of this
scale,” said Peter Mullin, Chairman
of the Mullin Automotive Museum. “I
cannot imagine a greater token of respect to the Bugatti family than to
help finish Jean Bugatti’s beloved
final masterpiece.”
Visitors may view this remarkable piece of automotive history at
the Mullin Automotive Museum in
Oxnard, CA this fall. The auto is
among the museum’s magnificent
collection of prewar coachbuilt automobiles.

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 9

Continued from Cover

PCI Objects to CDI

The current free market system provides checks and balances by allowing the parties to work together to
determine prices for auto repairs and
parts—these regulations will undermine insurers’ ability to manage costs
and basically provide auto body shops a
blank check. These regulations completely ignore the fact that auto body
shops are vendors with a financial stake
in the system, not consumers. It is not
the role of the insurance commissioner
to interfere in the free market system
and propose regulations that will financially benefit one party (auto body
shops) at the expense of policyholders.”
A 2011 study by Vincent J. Romans of The Romans Group used 2010
data and reported there are 20,000,000
auto accidents annually. 73 percent of
accidents are covered by insurance. The
total paid by insurers for auto accidents
was $50.8 billion. The total paid by
consumers was $2.7 billion. The total
paid for auto repair was $31 billion. Insurers paid 90 percent of those repair
costs.
Of equal concern are the provisions concerning aftermarket parts,
“”Commissioner Jones is effectively
preventing the use of after-market parts
which provide an affordable alternative
to original equipment manufacturer
(OEM) parts. These regulations erroneously require insurers to perform duties that should be handled by the
manufacturers or distributors of aftermarket parts,” said Feliciano.
“The Property Casualty Insurers
Association of America (PCI) estimates
that OEM parts are 60 percent more ex-

Show Low, AZ, Approves
New Body Shop Location

The Show Low, AZ, Planning and
Zoning Commission approved a conditional use permit for an auto body
shop along White Mountain Road
during their regular meeting Aug. 14.
Gerald Tinkel of Distinktive Auto
Body at 1011 N 16th St. Ste 4, Show
Low, AZ, submitted the permit to
open up a shop on 81 N. White Mountain Road, the old home of J&L Glass
which has not been used for some
time. He would be moving the business from its current location on the
Deuce of Clubs. As conditions for the
permit, Planning and Zoning Director
Justen Tregaskes said the building facade, landscaping, parking and lighting must be brought up to city code.

pensive than aftermarket parts and if
these regulations take effect and aftermarket parts are not used in California
the cost of auto repair could increase by
$379.9 million per year. If original auto
parts are allowed to dominate the market, each Californian with auto insurance could see their premiums rise by
$26.00. Given the fragile economy why
mandate certain parts that will increase
costs to consumers? It is a fact that aftermarket parts provide competition to
original auto parts, which helps keep
the cost of repairs reasonable. Aftermarket parts serve the same function as
generic drugs; they give consumers an
alternative to the high cost of brand
name drugs.”
Among many new ‘vague and burdensome’ provisions, these proposed
regulations will:
● Mandate that insurer estimates
for repair must be in the amount in “accordance with accepted trade standards.” The auto body shops will
establish these standards.
● Insurers will be disallowed from
preparing an estimate that is less favorable to the claimant than the standards,
costs and guidelines provided by thirdparty repair estimating software.
● Require insurers to pay the cost
of any “inspections and tests” of nonoriginal equipment manufacturer (nonOEM) replacement crash parts.
● Require insurers to stop using
non-OEM parts if they have knowledge
that such parts are not equal to OEM
parts and require insurers to notify the
estimating software provider and request this part be removed from their
list. Insurers must also notify the certifying entity and the distributor if the insurer thinks the part is defective.
● Insurers will be required to pay

the costs of returning a non-OEM part
and pay the costs of removing and replacing the part if the part is thought to
be not equal to OEM parts.
“These regulations are a blatant attempt to create new law via the regulatory process. Commissioner Jones and
the Department of Insurance do not
have the authority to regulate standards
for repairs and use of aftermarket
parts,” said Feliciano. “ACIC’s regulatory comments document how the legal
foundation of these regulations fails to
meet the necessity, authority, clarity,
consistency and reference standards
under the California Administrative
Procedures Act.”
“These regulations remove consumer choice by squarely placing the
auto body shops in total control of the
auto repair process disregarding the legitimate interests of policyholders, insurers, parts manufacturers and parts
distributors,” said Feliciano.
“Currently consumers have a
choice to use original or aftermarket
parts. The Department is proposing regulations that will stick California drivers with higher repair costs and fewer
choices just to benefit auto body shops.
It is seriously irresponsible to propose
a law that allows one party to control

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10 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

Competitive Crash Parts - At a Glance
● PCI estimates that the availability of
quality competitive replacement parts
saved consumers more than $2.3 billion
dollars in insurance costs per year nationwide.
● Alternative collision repair parts are
anywhere from 26 to 50 percent less expensive than parts issued by automobile
companies and also often have longer
warranties.
● The availability of quality alternative
collision parts means fewer delays in
repairs, which gets consumers and
business vehicles back on the road
faster.
● The elimination of quality collision
repair parts as a viable option for consumers could result in higher repair
costs that could increase insurance
premiums.
● The alternative collision repair parts
industry provides tens of thousands of
U.S. jobs across the country and has
operations in all 50 states.
● Quality alternative collision repair
parts are available to consumers at
more than 40,000 body shops nationwide.

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companies engaged in and advancing
sustainability practices. AkzoNobel
gave the 2012 FIT Sustainability
Award to two repairers and a car rental
company during a special program
held in July at the San Antonio Convention Center in Texas. The businesses recognized are Oka’s Auto Body
in Waipahu, Hawaii; Keenan Auto
Body in Clifton Heights, PA; and Enterprise-Rent-A-Car in St. Louis, MO.

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pared in an amount that will allow for
repairs to be made “in accordance
with accepted trade standards for good
and workmanlike automotive repairs
by an auto body repair shop,” and that
“No insurer shall willfully depart from
or disregard [accepted trade standards] in the preparation of claim settlement offers” and “An insurer shall
not prepare an estimate that is less favorable to the claimant than the standards, costs, and guidelines provided
by the [estimating system].
Another change of particular interest would require the shop estimate
to function as the starting point for any
insurer adjustments. This effectively
allows the insurer only to “red line” a
shop estimate, striking out what it proposes not to pay for, rather than writing an entirely new estimate for the
adjusted amount. The insurer would
then be required to provide its customer with the edited copy of the estimate written by the shop of their
choice.
The department says this amendment “is reasonably necessary to

allow both the consumer and the auto
body repair shop to identify specifically where those adjustments have
been made...”
The balance of the proposed
changes deal more specifically with
aftermarket parts. Those changes
would mandate:
• that insurers disclose in writing,
on any insurer-prepared estimate that
specifies aftermarket parts, that they
warrant those parts as “like kind, quality, safety, fit, and performance” as
OEM parts.
• that should an insurer have “implied, actual, or constructive knowledge” that a specified aftermarket
part is not equal to the OEM in terms
of quality, safety, fit, and performance, the insurer shall immediately
cease specifying the use of that part
and shall notify the estimating software provider and request this part be
removed from the estimating software. The insurer would also be required to notify the distributor,
manufacturer, and, if applicable, any
certifying entity. In addition, the insurer specifying a part later found to
be defective would be responsible for
any costs associated with removing
and replacing the part with either a

compliant non-OEM part or an OEM
part.
The Department says, “Performing repairs in a manner that is not
compliant with current repair standards or placing an inferior aftermarket part in a vehicle may result the
vehicle’s value to depreciate. Also, a
part that is not of like kind, quality,
safety, fit, and performance may cause
injury or even death if it malfunctions.”
The department explains, “After
several years of evaluating this law
and investigating complaints from the
consumers and auto repair shops, The
Department of Insurance has concluded that disputes regarding the true
cost of repairs of damaged vehicles
and the applicable repair standard required to comply with the current regulation continue to negatively effect
the claims handling process. Additionally, aftermarket parts that are not
compliant with the current regulations
continue to infiltrate the repair process
threatening public safety. The Department is also aware of substantial costs
borne by auto repair shops and their
customers associated with installing
defective or poorly fitting parts required by insurers.”

The proposed amendments are intended to address these and related issues, the Department said. “...the
added disclosures and reporting safeguards provided by the proposed
amendments increase the overall
transparency in the insurance claims
transaction and maintain insurers’ accountability in the process.”

ABRA Opens Another in NC

ABRA Auto Body and Glass has announced the opening of a new shop location at Asheville Ford in West Central
North Carolina. The location brings the
company’s total franchise repair centers
to 43.
“We are absolutely thrilled with
the progression of our national growth
plan,” said Duane Rouse, president and
CEO of ABRA Auto Body and Glass.
“The excellent reputation of Asheville
Ford in the community along with
ABRA’s cutting-edge technology creates a partnership and business model
second to none.”

Mitchell International hosted an open
house for San Diego CAA members
at their new Mitchell Corporate Headquarters in the University City area of
San Diego on July 24th.
The California Autobody Association—San Diego Chapter partnered with
Mitchell International to host the open

house so that CAA members could get an
insider’s view into the world of collision
information software and development.
The event was well attended with
over 50 participants.
Yuan Cheng, Mitchell Product
Manager, RepairCenter presented a
demonstration of Mitchell’s new
RepairCenter™ ToolStore, which pro-

vides a platform to integrate multiple
third-party applications that can help
shops be more productive.
Cheng demonstrated how the
RepairCenter™ ToolStore Open Platform worked with multiple partners
to enable shops to add third–party
tools quickly and easily. Enterprise
and LKQ are already providing free
applications on ToolStore and other
apps are in development.
According to Mitchell’s website,
RepairCenter™ ToolStore is a dynamic marketplace that empowers
body shops to connect with their mission critical collision repair trading
partners and third-party add-on tools
—tools that help shops streamline
workflows and run their businesses
more profitably and efficiently. Built
within RepairCenter’s market leading
repair data and business management
solutions, the ToolStore features applications, such as paint, rental, parts, analytics, accessories, compliance, digital
marketing, customer satisfaction and
more.
Mitchell also hosted a casual
dinner and raffle at the end of the
demonstration.
For additional information about
the CAA and membership benefits,
contact Hop Sanchez. at:
SanchezH@Finishmaster.com.

Bay Area Men Charged with 90 Felonies in
Elaborate Insurance Fraud, Theft and Arson
Two Fresno, CA, men will stand trial
after allegedly operating a fraud ring
that siphoned more than $600,000
from insurers.
Detectives believe that Louis
Houston, 48, and Cedric Berdell
Jackson Jr, 28, served as perpetrators
in the filing of a variety of bogus insurance claims dating back to 2000.
Their extensive scheme involved filing loss claims for traffic collisions,
stolen vehicles, vehicle vandalism,
vehicle fires, residential fires, and
even water damage. Over the course
of a year-long investigation by the
California Department of Insurance
(CDI), authorities learned Houston
and Jackson filed more than 50 claims
since 2007, and more than 165 loss
claims since 2000.
On July 26, 2012, the CDI and
Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office served multiple search
and arrest warrants for insurance
fraud, burglary, and conspiracy. In
procuring evidence that led to felony
charges and the suspects’ arrests, investigators received assistance from
Geico, Allstate, Balboa, Homesite,
Farmers, 21st Century, Travelers,
RepWest, Nationwide, AAA Insurance Exchange, Assurant, MetLife,

and Safeco, along with the National
Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).
“Detectives from CDI along with
investigators and the prosecutors from
the District Attorney’s office worked
arduously to bring these suspects to
justice,” said California Insurance
Commissioner Dave Jones. “Their
tireless efforts have stopped these suspects from allegedly stealing from additional consumers and ripping off
insurers, which often leads to higher
premiums for Californians.”
Investigators are now attempting
to calculate the amount of loss to the
insurance industry as a result of these
alleged fraud schemes. The estimated
loss, which contains both real and potential amounts, is believed to be between $400,000 and $600,000 and
may even be higher.
The Contra County District Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the
case. The court has set bail for Houston at $1,865,000, and $620,000 for
Jackson.

www.autobodynews.com
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Nick Aquila, who worked for 30
years in the auto body repair business
and was the former owner of Sebastopol Auto Body, died August 8 of
heart failure at a Santa Rosa, CA hospital at the age of 88.
A Sebastopol, CA, businessman
and civic leader, Aquila was a child of
the Depression who had empathy for
kids, county jail inmates and elderly
nursing home residents.
He served as a reserve sheriff’s
deputy in Sonoma County for 20 years,
was a member of the Sebastopol Planning Commission and the Sonoma
County grand jury, and was voted Man
of the Year by the Sebastopol Chamber
of Commerce in 1975. Active in local
politics, he was a friend and campaign
volunteer for judges and prosecutors,
including former Judge John Gallagher
and District Attorney Gene Tunney.
Aquila, who overcame a potentially damaging brain aneurism, was
told by doctors that he would not walk
again, but he recovered completely
and became a ballroom dance instructor. He was also a self-taught musician.
“If he wanted to do something,
he just learned about it,” said his
daughter, Christell Chapin of Coeur
d’Alene, Idaho.

The son of working-class Italian
immigrants, he was born on leap day
in 1924 in Castle
Gate, Utah, a former coal mining
town. Aquila was
only eight days
old when his father was one of
172 miners killed
in a mine exploNick Aquila
sion, then the
third deadliest coal-mining disaster in
U.S. history.
His mother and stepfather
moved to Contra Costa County when
he was young, and Aquila grew up in
the hard times of the 1930s.
He moved with his wife and five
children to Sonoma County in 1968
and lived in Freestone and Occidental before moving to Santa Rosa in
1983.
Playing guitar and harmonica
and singing, Aquila favored Johnny
Cash numbers and often performed at
local nursing homes. Also like Cash,
Aquila related to inmates while working as a reserve deputy at the Sonoma
County Jail. Aquila also served as an
unpaid patrol deputy in West County,
retiring around 1990.

Solera Holdings, Inc. Awards Cypress College with Grant

Cypress College in Cypress, CA, has
been awarded a portion of Solera’s
Matching Makeover grant through the
Collision Repair Education Foundation.
The Solera grant was made available
exclusively to California secondary
and/or post-secondary schools, and Cypress College will have its $50,000 wish
list of needed tools, equipment, and supplies fulfilled to benefit its collision program.
This $25,000 grant is a portion of
the $100,000 donation made to the
Collision Repair Education Foundation in 2010 by Solera, Holdings, Inc.
and its CEO, Tony Aquila, and is the
largest cash donation ever received by
the not-for-profit organization. Current industry supporters of the California Matching Makeover grant
program for Cypress College that will
fulfill the second $25,000 of the grant
include: 1-800-Radiator & A/C, ALLDATA, Assured Performance Network, Chilton Auto Body, Collision
Services, Crockett’s Premier Autobody, FIX Auto, Hobart, Matco Tools
and Oakland Autobody.
“Solera is truly pleased to provide and sponsor the Matching
Makeover grant program for Cypress
College through the Collision Repair
Education Foundation,” said Rick
Tuuri, VP of Industry Relations for

Audatex, a Solera Company. “It is important to Tony Aquila that we make a
lasting difference for collision repair
students, and transforming Cypress
College helps to achieve that goal.
We would also like to thank the additional industry partners that have
come on board to participate in this
Matching Makeover grant program
for Cypress College. Only through industry members coming together to
support its future professionals will
we have the greatest impact.”
Cypress College Auto Collision
Instructor Dan Snook said, “As the
recipients of the 2011 California
Matching Makeover grant sponsored
by Solera and Tony Aquila, the Cypress College Collision Repair Technology Department staff and
students express their appreciation.
Collision technical schools, ours included, are dependent upon industry
partnerships such as this. It is the
support of partnerships and educational grants that make it possible to
train students at the highest level.
Future technicians receive hands-on
training using the latest equipment
and products provided by our industry partners, ensuring students will
be trained to the highest level before
entering the automotive collision repair industry.”

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 15

Industry Insight

John Yoswick is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon, who has a body shop in the
family and has been writing about the automotive industry since 1988. He is the editor of the
weekly CRASH Network (for a free 4-week trial subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com).
Contact him by email at jyoswick@SpiritOne.com.

Information Providers Assure They Have Privacy Issues Handled
with John Yoswick

One by one this past spring, a
panel of repairers at the Collision Industry Conference
(CIC) voiced their
concerns about the
privacy of their
shop’s estimating
and other data, and
expressed a desire
to “opt out” of
Aaron Schulenburg
having that data
compiled and reported on by the Big
Three information providers.
But Audatex, CCC Information
Service and Mitchell International
have now responded to that concern
by essentially saying it’s not something shops need to be concerned
about.
The formal responses came in a
somewhat delayed fashion to a formal
question posed to them in January by
three national repairer groups.
Aaron Schulenburg, executive
director of the Society of Collision

Repair Specialists (SCRS), said back
in April that CCC was the first to provide a formal response to the associations’ request.
“The response addressed that
they have a mutual concern in protection of data, but didn’t really address
the questions that we’d asked relative
to an opt-out policy or discontinuation of collecting the data,” Schulenburg said.
Mitchell’s response came in late
April, Schulenburg reported at an
SCRS board meeting held in July.
“Their response basically indicated that Mitchell continues to believe that it’s in the best interest of the
collision repair industry, insurers and
the motoring public (for Mitchell to)
continue to provide aggregated,
anonymous data as a critical business
tool for the industry,” Schulenburg
said.
He said Mitchell’s response indicated that it does not supply statistics

16 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

or data in a form in which a single
shop’s data could be identified, and
does not provide profitability information or detailed data from shops to
outside parties.
“So their response was essentially
that they believe their current process
are good for the industry and that there
is no threat,” Schulenburg said. “I
think there are a lot of repairers that
we represent who feel otherwise in the
way their data is presented and as it
comes back to them in reports and
things along those lines.”
The response from Audatex,
Schulenburg said, arrived in mid July.
“The response essentially indicates that uploading the data to Audatex is a choice that the repairer
makes,” Schulenburg said. “The Audatex master agreement makes provision for the use of data that is
provided to Audatex by insurers, repairers and independent appraisers for
the purposes specified in the agree-

ment…(and that) Audatex is committed to protecting personal data and information, using aggregated data only
that reflects estimate content after
stripping out client information.”
Schulenburg said SCRS will now
discuss how to proceed with the other
associations (the Automotive Service
Association and the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers) that sent
the request in January.
“It’s a little confusing why it
would take such a lengthy amount of
time to receive those responses,”
Schulenburg said, “But at least six
months later we have answers to what
we felt was a pretty simple question
about their current practices.”
Also at the SCRS board meeting
in July, held in San Antonio, TX,
Schulenburg said State Farm’s mandated use of an online parts ordering
system is generating increased communication and involvement among
collision repairers, which, he said, is

actually leading to the formation of
some new state and regional associations.
“We’re seeing new groups pop up
in Utah, Idaho, Alabama and even in
Texas,” Schulenburg said, “I spoke
with the folks in Idaho the other day,
and this was the first time in 11 years
that they’ve had an association meeting in the state, so it is wonderful to
see.”
He said the Idaho meeting attracted about 50 shops, which is especially significant given the fact that
there are fewer than 300 shops in the
state.
Schulenburg said just as state associations help shops understand they
are not alone, he said SCRS brings
that message to those state associations as well. He said he thought of
that when he was in Sydney, Australia,
this June, as one of several SCRS representatives speaking at a repairer
conference in that country.
“It was fascinating to me to travel
10,000 miles and 20-plus hours and
have the exact same discussions that
we have here in a country half a world
away,” Schulenburg said. “Shops
there face the same pressures, the
same level of friction, the same level

of disrespect shown toward our
trade.”
He said the shop response there,
however, tends to be more direct, including rallies and pickets against insurers viewed as making unacceptable
demands. Even shops on an insurer’s
direct repair program didn’t hold back
in letting that insurer, if represented at
the conference, know how they felt.
“They were very upfront, very direct and very pointed with the questions and comments they had for the
carriers,” Schulenburg said. “It was
very different than I think some of the
types of discussions that repairers in
the U.S. attempt to have here, such as
at CIC, where I think there’s an ongoing sensitivity that if we’re straightforward and direct and pointed with
what we say, the insurers won’t come
any more. There’s concern by some
people in that room that you need a
more sensitive or politically correct
approach to the message to ensure that
everyone continues to show up. While
the rallies and pickets may not suit the
U.S., I think the direct nature of the
conversation certainly should. Conversation isn’t worth having unless it’s
honest, genuine and direct. If people
don’t want to hear what you have to

say, there’s no sense in having them in
the room anyway.”
In one piece of SCRS association
business, Schulenburg also announced
that board member Stephen Regan
had submitted a letter of resignation
to the board. Regan, a political and
communications consultant who has
worked with the Massachusetts Auto
Body Association (MABA) and who
joined the SCRS board in 2008, said a
change in his employment would limit
his ability to attend future SCRS
board meetings.
Schulenburg said that SCRS
Chairman Aaron Clark will appoint a
replacement this fall for Regan, whose
term was to expire in April of 2015.
“We’ll certainly miss Steve Regans’ contributions,” Schulenburg
said. “He’s been a great asset to the
board for a great many years.”

John Yoswick, a freelance writer
based in Portland, Oregon, who has
been writing about the automotive
industry since 1988, is also the editor of the weekly CRASH Network
(for a free 4-week trial subscription,
visit www.CrashNetwork.com). He
can be contacted by email at
jyoswick@SpiritOne.com.

Toyota to Sell Hybrid Avalon
in the Fall

Toyota will offer a gas-electric hybrid version of its all-new Avalon big
sedan when the car comes out in the
fall. Toyota says the new Avalon hybrid, with ample room for five people, will get 40 miles per gallon in
combined city and highway driving,
and 39 mpg on the freeway.
The standard Avalon will come
with a 268 horsepower, 3.5-Liter V-6
engine that gets 25 miles per gallon
in combined city-highway driving,
and 31 on the freeway.
The hybrid system has 200 horsepower and has two electric motor-generators and a gasoline engine. It runs
mainly on a combination of gas and
electricity, but can be all-electric for up
to a mile at speeds under 25 mph.
The hybrid could help boost
sales of the Avalon, which is competing in a shrinking market for fullsize cars. Gas mileage is one reason
that people have been downsizing
from larger cars to midsize ones.
Toyota said the Avalon, designed mainly in the U.S., will ride
and handle better than the current
version, and it’s also quieter. No
prices have been released for either
Avalon model. The current Avalon
starts at $33,195.

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 17

Carlyle Makes Offer on DuPont Performance Coating

The Carlyle Group has emerged as the
top bidder in the race to acquire
DuPont's auto paint business, according to recent media reports. The purchase price is reported to be between
$4.5 and $5 billion.
According to the New York Post,
the Carlyle bid values the business at
about eight times earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization—slightly higher than DuPont
had anticipated.
The DuPont unit had sales of
$4.3 billion last year, with revenue of
$2.1 billion in the six months to June
30 as higher prices countered a slight
decline in volume. DuPont’s auto
paint business serves auto makers
General Motors and Ford and its primary clients are Maaco and other
auto-paint refinishers.
DuPont last year launched a
strategic review of its fourth-largest
unit by revenue as opportunities to expand sales and margins have lagged
behind its eight other operating businesses. Three-quarters of the coatings
unit's sales are outside the U.S., and
the business operates 19 plants, including eight in Europe and five in
Asia.
Private-equity firms see a chance
to improve the performance of a
global business that has not seen

much investment from DuPont as the
company shifts its attention away
from so-called commodity chemicals
and to science-focused product innovation, such as Kevlar body armor
and genetically modified seeds.
The Carlyle Group is acquiring
in the automotive aftermarket, purchasing U.S. based Service King Collision Repair Centers and compressor
manufacturer Sullair Corporation in
the last few weeks.
Competing bids were submitted
by Apollo Management, Blackstone
and KKR.
For Carlyle, the deal would be its
second multibillion-dollar acquisition
this summer. Last month, the Washington, D.C., firm agreed to pay
United Technologies Corp. about $3.5
billion for its Hamilton Sundstrand
unit, which makes industrial pumps
and compressors.
Carlyle Group still has to finalize the proposed deal to acquire one
of the largest suppliers of paints and
finishes to the global auto industry,
and there's no guarantee a deal will be
reached. But the firm topped offers
from two other private equity suitors.
Meanwhile, a sale would mark
DuPont's first large-scale divestiture
since 2004, when it sold its fibers unit
to for $4.2 billion.

Nebraska Auto Body Association Opposes
State Farm’s Pilot Parts Procurement Program
The Nebraska Auto Body Association
(NABA) announced its opposition to
State Farm Insurance’s parts procurement system through PartsTrader.
The announcement comes on the
heels of other organizations that also
recently denounced the program, including the Alliance of Automotive
Service Providers (AASP) of Illinois
and AASP of New Jersey. The NABA
cautions collision repair shops to consider PartsTrader’s potential business
impacts, such as additional administrative times and costs.
Norbert Zaenglein, director of
the NABA, said all U.S. states have
ineffective regulations for market
conduct, which gives insurers free
rein over the collision industry. He
said state regulation of insurers’
claims settlement practices is seriously compromised, and the catalyst
for several foundational problems
faced by repairers.
“Lack of regulatory oversight allows insurers to take more and more
control over the collision repair industry from influencing estimating
databases, manipulating labor rates
and controlling the repair process. Repairers who believe that this will be
the final encroachment into their busi-

ness are seriously mistaken. The
squeeze by insurers will be relentless,
and claimants will pay the price in
terms of repairs that do not restore the
vehicle as promised under the policy
of insurance,” Zaenglein said. “Without adequate regulation of the insurance industry, it is up to shops to stand
up to intrusive mandates by the insurance industry and get actively involved in fixing a very broken
insurance regulatory process.”
State Farm launched its pilot program through PartsTrader earlier this
year. The program requires shops affiliated with State Farm’s Select Service direct repair network to source
parts from vendors through a Webbased process facilitated by PartsTrader. Repairers submit parts orders
through the system and vendors bid
for the sale.
State Farm has said the process
should improve part availability, process
efficiency, order accuracy and create a
better experience for customers.

BHPH Legislation Up for Debate Again with CA Lawmakers
major components and lasts for at
least 30 days or 1,000 miles.
• Prohibit BHPH dealers from requiring a buyer to make regular payments
in person.
• Require BHPH dealers receive written consent from the buyer prior to
selling a vehicle with an electronic
tracking device.
• Require BHPH dealers to provide
notice to the buyer of the presence of
ignition shutdown technology in the
vehicle and that such technology be
set to provide advance warnings to
the driver to help avoid stranding
drivers.
Furthermore, Assembly Bill 1534
received would require a BHPH
dealer to display a label on any used
vehicle offered for retail sale that
states the “reasonable market value”
of the unit. The bill would require the
label to contain specified information
used to determine the vehicle’s reasonable market value and the date the
value was determined.
Moreover, AB 1534 would require a BHPH dealer to provide to a
prospective buyer of the used vehicle
a copy of any information obtained

California lawmakers have through
August to give final approval of bills
that could greatly regulate how buyhere pay-here (BHPH) dealerships operate.
“There’s never been anything like
this. Dealers are very concerned,” Independent Automobile Dealers Association of California (IADAC)
executive director Larry Laskowski
said.
Senate Bill 956 has three main
goals:
• Impose first-ever regulations on
dealers offering buy-here, pay-here installment loans by requiring them to
obtain a California Finance Lender’s
license.
• Limit used-vehicle installment loans
to an interest rate of no more than
17.25 percent, which would give California the strongest cap in the nation.
• Change the way BHPH dealers are
able to repossess vehicles to include
grace periods and make it easier for
buyers to reinstate a repossessed unit.
Some of the regulations Assembly Bill 1447 would create include:
• Require BHPH dealers to provide a
limited warranty that covers most

from a nationally recognized pricing
guide the dealer utilized to determine
the reasonable market value of the vehicle.
As SB 956 works its way to a second reading before the Assembly Judiciary Committee, the two Assembly
measures are set to be reviewed by the
Senate Appropriations Committee.
The bills must be approved and sent
to Gov. Jerry Brown by Aug. 31.
Laskowski is concerned that California lawmakers still do not have
firm classification of what a BHPH
dealer is.
“There’s not a definition for a
buy-here, pay-here dealer because it’s
a business model,” said Laskowski.
“It’s not a check box on your
DMV application when you’re getting
your dealer license that you want to be
a buy-here, pay-here dealer. It’s simply a business model,” he said. “According to the definition they have
now, our study says it probably involves 50 percent of the retail dealers
just because it’s so broad reaching.
Right now they’ve got a big problem
with the definition and we don’t have
a resolution as of yet.”

The IADAC official also is wary
about lawmakers’ belief that a significant amount of “churn” goes on in the
BHPH space.
“That’s a term, as I understand it,
with the intent of just trying to repossess the car and resell it,” Laskowski
explained. “That is something that is
so far from the truth. By and large, if
we’re talking about problems this is
probably a miniscule problem because
those who do bad business aren’t
going to stay in business for very
long.”
Should all three bills become
California law, Laskowski fears
that competition will dwindle because the measures will significantly hurt dealers such as Gus
Camacho. Laskowski recapped that
Camacho, who operates several independent stores in southern California, testified during several
committee hearings as one of
IADAC’s most respected members.
Laskowski indicated that Camacho told lawmakers he would have to
terminate about half of his workforce
of about 80 employees if the bills became law.

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www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 19

Prevost Introduces One-Push, Quick
Release Coupler
Prevost is pleased to announce their
“New Generation PS1” coupler in the
HVLP (High Flow) profile. This is a
completely new and innovative quick
release coupling for compressed air.
The new patented one-push, quick release coupler combines safety, performance and ease of use.
Unsecured (non-safety) couplers
present a significant risk of hose-whip
during disconnection. Employers are
responsible for a safe working environment.
Prevost safety-couplings comply
with ISO 4414 and ISO 6150 standards, and these couplings are regarded among the best in the market.
To comply with the norms, a coupling
should purge the compressed air on
the supply side before releasing the
plug. This is done using a double
locking device.
The user has to operate a safety
coupling twice to disconnect: A first
time to purge the compressed air, a
second time to release the plug. This
two-step operation is mostly done
by any combination of rotating the
sleeve from left to right and/or viceversa or to push the sleeve back and
pull it forward again, north, south

east or west.
The new ESI coupling of Prevost
uses the compressed air on the supply
side of the coupling to sustain the first
locking phase. Only when the compressed air is purged will it automatically click to the second phase and
release the plug. The user has to perform just one action: push the button.
Depending on the volume of compressed air, the purge and release time
will be a few seconds for a 10-meter
3/8” hose and practically nothing for
an air tool.
This new generation of couplings
will give users a long, safe and leakfree lifetime.
Prevost, with offices in Greenville
SC, was established in France in 1978.
They first introduced the world's only
push-button quick disconnect coupler.
Later they developed the innovative
push-button quick disconnect safety
coupler, the first coupler to pass the
ISO 4414 safety standard. Today, Prevost offers the most complete range of
innovative compressed air products in
the industry.
For details on Prevost ALR Aluminum Air Piping Systems, call 800845-7220 or visit www.prevostusa.com.

National Autobody Parts Warehouse
Inc. is now certified by NSF International’s Automotive Collision Parts
Distributor Certification Program.
NSF International is an independent
testing and certification organization
with more than 20 years of automotive experience. The automotive collision parts distributor is one of the
first companies to earn this certification.
The NSF Automotive Collision
Parts Distributor Certification Program
helps close the gap in the supply chain
between parts manufacturers and body
shops and was developed to respond to
the needs of collision repair shops, insurers and ultimately consumers. The
distributor program complements the
NSF Automotive Collision Replacement Parts Certification Program,
which certifies automotive collision replacement parts, including steel
bumpers, step bumpers, brackets, rebars, sheet metal, plastic, lighting and
absorbers. The latter program certifies
that parts meet rigid quality, safety and
performance standards in terms of
form, fit and function.
“An extension of NSF International’s Automotive Collision Replacement Parts Certification Program, the
NSF Automotive Distributor Certifica-

tion Program certifies the ability of distributors, such as National Autobody
Parts Warehouse, to meet stringent performance and quality standards including having an effective system to track
orders and parts,” said Bob Frayer, director of NSF International’s Automotive Parts Certification Programs.
To earn certification, National
Autobody Parts Warehouse demonstrated that it has effective records and
inventory systems to track orders and
parts through the supply chain.
National Autobody Parts Warehouse also met the following criteria
required by the NSF Automotive Collision Parts Distributor Certification
Program: An ISO 9001-certified quality management system; a parts traceability and inventory tracking system;
a defective parts procedure including
a customer parts complaint process;
the ability to administer a manufacturer’s recall; a formal corrective action to complaints and an immediate
recall plan.
Having met all of the certification requirements, National Autobody
Parts Warehouse is authorized to use
the NSF Certified Distributor mark on
its website and promotional materials
indicating it is an NSF automotive
parts certified distributor.

Insurance Auto Auctions has contributed $10,000 to the Collision Repair Education Foundation. The
contribution will support the Education Foundation’s Collision Repair
Education Campaign fund, which
allows the Foundation to provide its
annual student scholarships, school
grants and the yearly Ultimate Collision Education Makeover $50,000
grant.
“IAA is proud to provide financial support that will help remove financial barriers to education and
attract and inspire students to pursue
career options in the collision industry,” said Donald J. Hermanek,
chief client officer at Insurance Auto
Auctions. “IAA values the important
work the Collision Repair Education
Foundation does in building awareness of the industry and rewarding
those students who bring passion for
their trade.”
“Insurance Auto Auctions’s donation significantly helps our efforts
in supporting secondary and postsecondary collision students and
their school’s collision programs,”
said Clark Plucinski, Collision Repair Education Foundation executive director.

Florida Shop Increases Labor Rate 12.5%, Most Insurers Object, Then Pay
Ray Gunder, founder of Gunder’s
Auto Center, Inc., which has served
Lakeland, FL and its surrounding communities for over 44 years, determined
the current labor rates which were
being offered by insurers were insufficient to sustain profitability and continued growth.
Upon determining the true cost of
operations, in June, 2012, the decision
was made by insurers to increase the
standard door labor rate from their previously posted rate of $42.00 to $48.00
per labor hour, a12.5% increase.
Ray Gunder stated, “It had been
almost six years since rates had
moved, driving our net profit into a
danger zone. Our business and our
techs struggling financially left me
with no options. Every insurance employee I talked with certainly hadn’t
missed their cost of living raises. If repairers sit around and wait for a handout - that’ll be what they will likely get
- a hand-out. I felt that for my company and its team members to keep up
with the rising costs of living and for
us to keep abreast of ever-increasing
operational costs, raising our labor
rates was necessary. We needed to take
actions and we did.”
Gunder’s new rates were posted
in their reception area and each claims

rae

Reliable Automotive Equipment, inc.

person and appraiser who Gunder’s
dealt with were informed of the new
rates.
This increase, which Gunder considered minimum, was considered by
many insurers to be substantial and
was met with anticipated resistance,
however, most know of Ray’s lack of
hesitation to “pull the trigger” and to
act on behalf of his customers in asserting their rights for “fair and acceptable” compensation for “reasonable
and necessary” repair costs.
Many insurance companies made
their concerns and objections known
but elected to pay the rate. Those insurers include: MetLife, Kemper Services, Westfield Comp., Auto Owners,
Acceptance Casualty, Liberty Mutual,
Amica Mutual, Horace Mann, The
Hartford and Direct General.
And others, not so agreeable, include: USAA, GEICO, State Farm,
Allstate, Infinity and Travelers.
Thus far, the above insurers have
yet to pay Gunder’s customers’ labor
rate willingly. As such, Gunder’s has
had to take the appropriate action to
enable their customers to receive their
entitlements necessary to allow them
to get a thorough and quality repair
and has proceeded to file lawsuits on
behalf of their customers.

“To date, two of these insurers
have asked our attorney what his
charges are to date, perhaps with the
thought of conceding, paying our
rates, and avoiding protracted litigation. With regard to the others, we
have filed for discovery and scheduled
depositions with their claims people
and I am anxious to see what we find
as it will no doubt lead to other issues
to be used in future actions - if and
when they should be required,” Ray
said. “I am sure all insurers are concerned with having to pay other shops
in the area if they pay Gunder’s, but I
have to say that I am stunned at how
far we have come in getting fair and
reasonable compensation for things
like PMC-Logic material invoicing,
mark-up on sublet, parts return fees
and many other reasonable and necessary charges and have consistently
heard that other local repairers don’t
request such compensation, even
though they know Gunder’s is getting
paid for them. I’ve had appraisers tell
me…’Ray, I’d pay it if asked…but
very few even ask!’
“As for me, I’m not looking to fix
the world, I just want to fix my customer’s cars properly, pay my techs
fairly for their efforts and provide for
my family,” Gunder said.

RAE is North America’s premier supplier of Wielander+Schill
equipment, the most globally recognized name in collision
repair with the most OEM approvals.
OEM approved systems and products are the “preferred choice”
for use in collision repair because the system or products have
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www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 21

Registration Up for Repairer
Driven Education at SEMA

The Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) has announced that
registration for the Repairer Driven
Education (RDE) series at the 2012
SEMA Show is up nearly 300 percent year-to-date over last year.
“The first two years of the RDE
program brought a lot of very positive response from the attendees,
and we believe that the numbers
clearly indicate that our program at
the SEMA Show is delivering exactly what the industry is looking for
right now,” said SCRS Chairman
Aaron Clark. “We’ve worked hard
to put together a program that
specifically addresses solutions to
existing business conditions.”
SCRS also reports an uptick in
the number of MSOs and international automotive businesses participating in RDE. International repairers
currently signed up for the 2012 RDE
represent more than a dozen different
countries. SCRS believes that the
growth in both of these types of participants reflects the universal relevance of the issues addressed in the
RDE sessions and the benefit the information holds for collision businesses regardless of location,
business model or size.

LKQ Sweepstakes Grand
Prize Winner Gets a Car

LKQ Corporation’s GetGreen
Sweepstakes Grand Prize winner of
a Chevy Cruze is Don K., parts manager at Fender Mender, Charleston,
SC. Fender Mender is a regional collision repair shop serving the
Charleston area, and is a customer of
LKQ Savannah and Keystone
Charleston. Fender Mender repairs
over 2,700 cars a year and is one of
the largest professional collision repair shop in the state of South Carolina.
“We strive to provide our customers with timely, affordable and
effective service in a friendly professional environment,” said Don
K., who has over 35 years experience in the industry.
As collision repair specialists,
Fender Mender has been providing
top quality auto body, paint and refinishing services for over 200,000
vehicles since 1987. Fender Mender
is also recognized as a “Green Repair Shop.” The company has instituted a recycling program for
hazardous wastes and excess materials from repairs. These materials
are sent to processing centers and
more than 75% of waste materials
are recycled.

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Man Accused in Connection
with Counterfeit Auto Parts

A man who works as a mechanic in a
Charlotte, NC, body shop is accused
of running a multi-state counterfeit
auto parts ring, and federal agents are
investigating if customers are driving
around with fake airbags in their vehicles.
Homeland Security agents said
Igor Borodin, who lives in a new
house in a quiet subdivision, played a
critical role in distributing fake auto
parts throughout the southeastern
United States. Federal agents stacked
dozens of boxes on Borodin’s driveway, each one believed to contain
counterfeit auto parts. The operation
involved Homeland Security agents
from North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Agents collected evidence from the house for
eight hours.
The owner of Krugger Auto in
North Charlotte said Borodin works
as a mechanic in his body shop. He
said federal agents told him they believed Borodin was dealing in fake
airbags, and asked for receipts and
other documentation. The owner,
who did not want to be named, said
he’s cooperating fully with investigators and will do whatever they ask
of him.

Carlyle Group Closes Deal
on Service King

The Carlyle Group has closed its
deal to acquire Service King Collision Repair Centers.
Service King Collision Repair
Centers, which operates nine locations in San Antonio, TX, was
bought out by a consortium made
up of The Carlyle Group and the
company’s management.
The Carlyle Group now holds
majority ownership in Service
King. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Founder Eddie Lennox retains some ownership stake in Dallas-based Service King. Former
CEO Cathy Bonner is now chairman of the board. Chris Abraham
has been appointed as new CEO
and Jeff McFadden is now president of the company.
Service King currently operates 49 locations in the Dallas-Fort
Worth, Houston, San Antonio and
Austin metropolitan areas. In the
last three years, the company’s revenues and location count have doubled.
Part of the reason The Carlyle
Group bought Service King is to
help the company expand nationally.

WIN Awards Two Top Female SkillsUSA Winners
For the sixth year in a row, the
Women’s Industry Network (WIN)
has awarded scholarships to the two
top scoring female winners at SkillsUSA to attend NACE. This year’s
recipients are Jessica Crowley, who
placed third in the automotive refinishing technology category, and
Kristina Shaver, who is the high
scorer in the collision repair technology category. The WIN scholarship
includes airfare, lodging and associated expenses, as well as a full access
NACE Expo Pass provided by the
Automotive Management Institute
(AMI) and ASA.
Additionally, Crowley and
Shaver will be honored at the ASA
sponsored industry awards ceremony
on October. They will also receive a
2012 WIN membership.
Crowley is a native of Boise, ID
and entered the collision industry by
enrolling in the College of Western
Idaho’s auto body and collision program. Following her 2012 graduation, she began working as a lead
commercial painter for Wrecker
Sales in Mountain Home. “It’s the
people I have met along the way that
have made this neverending journey
rewarding,” said Crowley. “I wake
up every morning with the question

of what I can do for someone else,
and this attitude is what has propelled
this troublemaker to turn it all around
and have a fulfilling career in the automotive industry.” She is currently
completing her associate’s degree in
applied science at College of Western
Idaho.
Shaver is a second year collision
repair student at Baker College in
Flint, MI. “I have loved cars and
working on them my whole life,” she
said. “As much as auto body repair is
about returning vehicles to given
specifications, it’s also an art form.”
A native of Birch Run, MI, Shaver is
currently employed at Golden Elm
Dairy.
“The WIN NACE scholarship
goes to the heart of WIN’s mission to
support and encourage women who
are entering the industry, particularly
those in the technical ranks. Surrounded by our amazing WIN members, this scholarship has consistently
been a wonderful way to introduce
young women to the collision industry,” said Teresa Bolton, Win’s
scholarship co-chair and treasurer.

www.autobodynews.com
CHECK IT OUT!

CARSTAR will hold its annual conference in San Antonio, TX, September 22-25 at the Hyatt Regency Hill
Country Resort and Spa. The Conference will include a vendor expo featuring manufacturers and service
providers in the industry, a keynote
address by nationally recognized Afterburner, a team of real fighter pilots
who deliver powerful leadership seminars, and a general session address by
five industry experts: Greg Horn,
Mitchell VP of Industry Relations;
Robb Knott, Nationwide Insurance
Claims Director; Jeff Peevy, I-CAR
Director of Field Operations; Vincent
Romans, CEO of the The Romans
Group LLC; Matthew Ohrnstein,
Managing Director of Symphony Advisors LLC.
More than 350 store owners and
employees will join the CARSTAR
corporate leadership team to plan for
the growth of CARSTAR in the years
ahead, celebrate the successes of the
CARSTAR store owners, participate
in training programs and share time
together as North America’s largest
MSO network. CARSTAR also is expecting claim executives from a majority of the top 20 personal auto
insurers to be in attendance.

I-CAR Announces Training
Schedule at ASRW

Automotive Service & Repair Week
(ASRW) announced that I-CAR has
released its training schedule for this
year’s event and will provide 11 training classes Oct. 10-12 at the Morial
Convention Center in New Orleans,
LA. Each instructor-led (live) class
will be four hours in duration.
I-CAR returns to the event this
year with some of its newest training, such as the premiere of its
Blueprinting Process and Damage
Discovery (BLU01) course. During
this “live-demo” course, students
will learn how blueprinting can lead
to more accurate damage assessments and gain insights into applying the blueprinting process in their
own shop environments. The livedemo will include the disassembly
of a vehicle and steps to discover
hidden damage.
The blueprinting course will take
place Thursday, Oct. 11, and Friday,
Oct. 12, from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. on the
ASRW show floor and will have a
maximum of 15 students per session.
“Offering I-CAR training courses
at ASRW is a huge value-add to attendees, and we’re pleased to once again
partner with them in this capacity,”
said Ron Pyle, ASA president.

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Research, Documentation is Ammunition in Battles with Insurers
by John Yoswick

John Borek didn’t just acquiesce to
putting reconditioned wheels—which
he had serious concerns about—on his
customers’ cars when that’s what insurers insisted on. Instead he found a way
to determine and demonstrate whether
those wheels were fit to be used.
That’s a pattern that Borek, owner
of Autocraft Bodywerks in Austin, TX,
has demonstrated over and over again:
Gathering the information he needs to
successfully prove his argument.

Holy Custom Car!

determine if it was bent.
“You can balance a wheel that’s
crooked, but just because it’s balanced
doesn’t mean it’s going to be true,”
Borek said. “This machine helps us
avoid using reconditioned wheels that
are out of round.”
Borek acknowledges that payback on the equipment is not necessarily quick.
“But even if we never get our
money back, it helps us do the right
thing,” he said.
Another way Borek has fought

If there’s any one vehicle that catches your eye inside Autocraft Bodywerks, it’s the C4 Corvette converted into one
of the best-known vehicles of all-time—The Batmobile,
complete with “real-sounding” front-mounted machine
guns.

Shop owner John Borek said the project is something
he will use to help raise awareness and funds for “Superhero Kids,” a non-profit to assist children (and their families) battling cancer and blood disorders at the Children’s
Blood and Cancer Center of Central Texas.
Borek was one of about 40 members of his Corvette
club that this summer gave kids battling cancer a chance

“I never imagined when I started
in this business that I would have to
be more of a lawyer and use my brain
rather than use my hands,” Borek said.
“But if you don’t, you can’t fix the car
correctly and get paid for doing so.”
When it came to the reconditioned wheels, for example, Borek’s
shop invested in a Hunter Engineering
Road Force GSP-9700 machine. More
than just a tire balancer, the equipment
measures the wheel inside and out,
identifying high and low spots. When
an insurer insisted on a reconditioned
wheel and a customer signed off on it,
Borek said, they tested the wheel to

the welding of the new quarter panel
make painting of the underside necessary as well.
“You can get another hour or two
to paint the backside, and it’s got to be
painted,” Borek said.
That concept came to his mind
shortly thereafter when his shop was
installing a floor in a 2009 Honda Accord, and the insurance appraiser refused to pay for painting both the top
and bottom of the floor pan.
“There’s paint on both sides, and
you have to put the vehicle on a lift to

to ride in a Viper, Lexus LFA or other high-end vehicle on a
30-mile police-escorted cruise in Central Texas.
“There must’ve been 20 motorcycle cops from three
different agencies, all volunteering, that shut down I-35 and
then Congress Avenue through Austin for us,” Borek said.
“We got to blow through every red light.”
Borek said he’d actually rather have
people focus on such projects than his
success using tools to prove that his
collision repair charges are reasonable.
“I would like people to know there’s
people in the industry who do good
things and help people,” he said.
The Batmobile isn’t the first imaginative vehicle Borek has created at his shop.
Last year, he constructed a flying saucer
to install in his front yard on Halloween.
The flying saucer looked like it had just
crashed into lawn, surrounded by yellow caution tape and
smoke, thanks to an interior fog machine.
“You gotta have some fun,” Borek said. “If you just
work all the time, you’ll just go crazy and have a heart attack.”
(The original TV Batmobile was designed and built by
George Barris based on a Lincoln Futura.)

successfully for what he knows is
right hasn’t cost him a dime. He’s frequently turned for free help offered
through the Database Enhancement
Gateway (DEG). Funded largely by
three national repairer associations,
the DEG offers a simple way to submit an inquiry to any of the Big Three
estimating database providers.
Several years ago, for example,
Borek took a class taught by consultant Mike Anderson of CollisionAdvice in which Anderson pointed out
that labor times to paint a quarter
panel are only for painting the outside
the panel. Grinding of pinchwelds and

paint the underside,” Borek said.
“And not only that, it was a different
color, a green e-coat.”
He submitted DEG Inquiry No.
1787, and received confirmation from
Audatex that its paint labor allowance
is for only the interior surface of the
floor pan.
“I basically said to the adjuster,
‘Which side of the floor do you want
me to paint because you’re only paying me to do one side,’” Borek said.
The documentation supplied
through the DEG was enough to convince the insurer to pay for the additional paint labor, two-tone materials

and the needed replacement sounddeadener.
“So that’s an example of something we got paid for by using the
DEG,” Borek said.
Borek said he’s used the Audatex
system long enough that he usually
knows the answer to the question he
submits to the DEG, but the process
provides the authoritative documentation he needs to prove his point.
More recently, for example, Borek
received a document that American
National Property and Casualty Company (ANPAC) that the claims services company said was from Audatex
and indicating that color sand and buff
is included in Audatex refinish times.
Borek knew this wasn’t the case and
submitted it to the DEG. Within 24 hours,
not only had Audatex responded that its
labor times did not include color sand and
buff, but also that it had searched its reference manual back to 1993 and could
not find the document that ANPAC was
using to defend its position.
“Color sand and buff has been a
pet-peeve of mine since 1998, and I
know it’s not included in any paint
time,” Borek said. “But how many
shops are being sent incorrect information about things like this and not
knowing any better?”
ANPAC later told the Texas Department of Insurance that the appraiser used “an outdated document.”
Borek still contends the document was
“fraudulent” given that Audatex concluded that the document is “most certainly not from ADP/Audatex.”
“But in any case, those are just two
examples where the DEG helped us.
And very quickly, I might add,” Borek
said. “I think the reason some people
don’t use it is they think it might only
help on the next one, and when am I
going to have that exact same vehicle
and procedure in my shop? But it can
help you right now if you just send it in.
It doesn’t cost anything, and you can
sometimes have a response in 24 hours.
And once you’ve done the research,
you always have it. We still get paid for
painting both sides of those floors.”
John Yoswick, a freelance writer based
in Portland, Oregon, who has been writing about the automotive industry since
1988, is also the editor of the weekly
CRASH Network (for a free 4-week trial
subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com). He can be contacted by
email at jyoswick@SpiritOne.com.

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 25

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Dick Cross, who served as CEO of
CARSTAR from 2004 to 2011, will be the
keynote speaker at this year’s NACE.
Cross is the author of the recently-published “Just Run It,” which ASA’s Ron
Pyle said offers a formula to help business
owners understand “the bigger picture of
how to achieve business success.” Pyle

said the message of Cross’ book and
keynote address will be that small business
owners can get so focused on the “next
great theory” (like “lean”), that they overlook some basic principles for running a
business successfully. “We’ve complicated
it to the point that we need to now go back
and say, ‘Just run it,’” Pyle said.

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Toyota will recall approximately
778,000 vehicles that are at risk for
problems with their rear suspension. But the recall hasn’t started
yet, because the company hasn’t
figured out how to fix the problem.
“The remedy is being finalized,” wrote Vinnie Venugopal,
Toyota’s general manager of Engineering and Manufacturing in
North America, in a recall acknowledgement letter sent to the
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration. “Toyota will provide NHTSA with additional details at a later time.”
Notifying NHTSA of the
problem without a solution is an
unusual step, perhaps especially so,
considering Toyota says it has been
monitoring the problem since
2008. The company said it would
notify owners of affected RAV4
and Lexus HS 250h models by
mail when they can schedule repairs.
The problem centers on improper tightening of lock nuts in
the rear-vehicle tie rods. Rust has
developed on the tie rods, leading
to corrosion, and possibly to separation of the arm from the vehicle.
Unchecked, the problem could result in loss of vehicle control, according to the defect report.
While the company says it is
safe for motorists to drive the vehicles until a permanent solution is
found, they should ensure the lock
nuts are properly tightened.
The problem could be responsible for at least one highway accident, in which a driver reported a
loud noise that immediately precipitated a loss of control. An internal Toyota investigation could
not discern whether the tie-road
corrosion had caused the accident.
RAV4 vehicles built in the
2006 through 2010 model years
and account for 760,000 of the vehicles in the recall. Lexus 250h
models number approximately
18,000 and are from the 2010
model year. Toyota did not respond
to requests for comment.

CALIFORNIA • NEVADA • ARIZONA

www.autobodynews.com

September 2012

2012 Nissans Probed on Airbags

Mazda Recalls 217K Tributes

Infiniti JX Gets Brake Probe

GM to Recall 250K SUVs, May
be Fire Hazard in Electricals

Chrysler’s Top Sellers Probed

Hyundai Settles Airbag Lawsuit

U.S. safety regulators are investigating reports that a damaged cable assembly in the 2012 Nissan Versa
could prevent its airbag from deploying in a crash. NHTSA said its investigation covered an estimated 100,000
Versas sold in the United States.
NHTSA said Nissan had notified it
that the airbag cable assembly was
found pinched within the steering column on some Versas. “Damage or a
short to this cable may cause the
airbag to not deploy, which poses a
safety risk,” said NHTSA’s Office of
Defect Investigation.

GM is recalling nearly 250,000 sport
utility vehicles because of an electrical
problem that might cause fires. The recall pertains to some 2006 and 2007
Chevrolet Trailblazers, GMC Envoys,
Buick Raniers, the SAAB 9-7x, and
Isuzu Ascenders, sold in a number of
northern states, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In these vehicles, fluid may enter
the driver’s door module, causing corrosion that can lead to a short-circuit.
‘A short may cause the power door
lock and power window switches to
function intermittently or become inoperative. The short may also cause overheating, which could melt components
of the door module, producing odor,
smoke, or a fire,’ the recall states.
GM reported that at least 28 vehicle door fires were reported in connection with the problem.
The recall includes a total of
249,260 vehicles that were sold in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana,
Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the
District of Columbia.
A solution to the problem is still
being finalized, according to the recall.
Owners will be notified if their vehicle
is included in the recall by the respective car makers.

34 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

Mazda is recalling 217,500 Tribute
SUVs due to a throttle problem that
could make it difficult to slow down a
vehicle after a driver presses down the
accelerator. Ford has recalled 2001 to
2004 model Escape SUVs. Ford and
Mazda jointly developed the affected
Escape and Tribute models, assembled by Ford. The recall affects vehicles made for the 2001 to 2006 and
2008 model years that were equipped
with the 3-liter, V-6 engine and speed
control. Ford recalled 423,634 Escapes in the US and 484,600 worldwide for the problem.
Chrysler’s two top-selling vehicles, the
Ram pickup and the Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV, are under investigation by the
NHTSA. The rear wheels can lock up
in Rams from the 2009 and 2010 model
years, potentially causing crashes,
while power steering fluid hoses can
leak in 2012 Grand Cherokees, possibly causing engine fires, according to
documents posted Monday on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website. Up to 230,000 Ram
pickups and nearly 107,000 Grand
Cherokees. The pickup is Chrysler’s
top-selling vehicle this year, while the
Grand Cherokee is No. 2.

Some Big GM Vans Recalled

GM is recalling more than 10,000
full-size vans in the US and Canada
because the fuel filler pipes can rust,
leak and cause fires. The recall affects
Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana
vans from the 2003 and 2004 model
years with left-side cargo doors. It
covers vans sold in 20 states, Washington, D.C., and in Canada, where
salt and chemicals are used to clear
snow from roads. GM said salt and
chemicals can get trapped in a conduit
that covers the fuel filler pipe and
cause corrosion. Gasoline may leak
and cause a fire. The company said it
doesn’t know of any fires or injuries
from the problem. Owners with questions can call Chevrolet at (866) 6946546 and GMC at (866) 996-9463.

NHTSA has opened an investigation
into the 2013 Infiniti JX over possible
improper application of the e-brake.
While the investigation of 8,000 new
Infiniti crossovers is not a recall, it
could eventually trigger one if the
government agency doesn't like what
it finds. Owners have reported that
“the intelligent brake assist system inappropriately activated emergency
braking autonomously bringing the
vehicle to an immediate and complete
stop.” Obviously there’s danger in a
vehicle that stops unintentionally and
without warning.
Law firm Hagens Berman has reached
a settlement with Hyundai in a lawsuit
regarding faulty airbags in the auto
manufacturer’s Sante Fe crossover vehicles. The lawsuit alleged that airbags
in some 2007–2009 Hyundai Santa Fe
crossover vehicles failed to deploy during certain types of collisions. The settlement allows owners of 2007–2009
Hyundai Sante Fe crossovers to return
defective vehicles if the company cannot repair them through a software upgrade, Hagens Berman said. Hagens
Berman said Hyundai has ordered a recall of roughly 200,000 vehicles in response to the lawsuit. The recall is the
latest in a series of recalls by Hyundai,
which have amounted to about 1.3 million vehicles since 2006. Hagens
Berman said the settlement will be filed
in court for approval by Aug. 17. The
recall will occur even if the court does
not approve the settlement.
“We negotiated a settlement that is
very favorable to consumers, giving
Hyundai owners the ability to return
their vehicle if the settlement’s software
upgrade does not fully solve the problem,” said Rob Carey, attorney for Seattle-based Hagens Berman. “This is
especially important when it comes to
something as critical as an airbag, a
safety feature mandated by federal law.”

www.autobodynews.com

GM Recalls Cruzes, Fire Risk

Engine fires are forcing General Motors to recall the Chevy Cruze, a popular model that has helped GM win
back small-car buyers.
The recall covers 475,000 vehicles made in the U.S. from September of 2010 through May of 2012. It’s
the car’s fifth recall since it arrived in
showrooms nearly two years ago,
raising questions about the sedan’s
reliability.
The fires can break out when
fluids drip onto a hot plastic shield
below the engine. The problem occurs mainly when oil is spilled and
not properly cleaned up during
changes, General Motors said Friday.
The company knows of 30 fires
caused by the problem, but no injuries have been reported, spokesman
Alan Adler said. Flames engulfed and
destroyed cars in two cases reported
to federal safety officials.
GM will notify owners starting
July 11 about when to bring cars to
local dealers for repairs, which are
free and should take about 30 minutes. Dealers will fix the problem by
cutting the plastic shield to let the
fluids drain to the pavement, GM
said. Cruzes with worn-out manual
transmissions also can leak fluid
onto the shields in rare cases, GM
said.

Regardless of the cause of vehicular
damage, the repairer’s moral obligation is to repair the vehicle to the original design intent relative to safety,
NVH, comfort, durability, and corrosion protection by duplicating the
original construction as closely as
possible by following all manufacturers’ guidelines. With the increasing
use of advanced high strength steels in
body construction, and their susceptibility to degraded material properties
from welding heat, the approved
process for installation of replacement
panels has changed.
Chrysler has previously approved
the use of “weld bonding,” where
squeeze type resistance spot welding
(STRSW) is combined with an approved structural adhesive, as one of
the acceptable methods to install
welded panels while maintaining the
original appearance and corrosion protection. High quality and capable
STRSW equipment, which was a rare
shop tool in the collision repair industry, has now become the norm and with
this, it is now important to state that
weld bonding of replacement panels is
the recommended installation method
to utilize when repairing Chrysler,
Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, or Ram vehicles.
GAS METAL ARC WELDING (GMAW or

MIG) SHOULD ONLY BE USED IN THE
FOLLOWING SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES:
• Proper weld access cannot be attained utilizing STRSW equipment
with any of the available accessory
arms.
• Utilize 6-8 mm ring fillet welds for
exterior panels and 8-10 mm for all
others.
• Adhesives need to be kept 25 mm
from a ring fillet weld due to their
flammability.
• A Chrysler publication explicitly
calls out fusion welding as the proper
repair method.
• The original attachment was
GMAW.
ALL OF THE FOLLOWING GUIDELINES
MUST BE ADHERED TO:
• DO NOT use heat to straighten
sheet metal unless the panel will be
replaced.
• If weld-on pulling studs are used,
their use must be minimal and the
backside of the repaired panel must
also be repaired to restore the original
corrosion protection.
CHARACTERISTIC OF ACCEPTABLE
STRSW EQUIPMENT:
NUMBER: 31-007-12
GROUP: Collision Bulletin

DATE: August 14, 2012
• Must utilize 220 volt (or greater),
three-phase power supply.
• Must utilize inverter technology
• Must have the capability to provide
a minimum of 10,000 amps of output.
• Must have the capability to provide
600 pounds of tip force (267 daN)
with the longest arms
• Should utilize “smart” technology
which helps eliminate errors in equipment set-up.

More than 100 body shop owners,
personnel, vendors and friends were
on hand at PPG’s San Francisco
Business Development Center in
Concord, CA on July 24 to enjoy a
barbecue dinner and listen to a presentation by Aaron Schulenburg, the
Executive Director of the Society of
Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS).

Aaron Schulenburg, Executive Director of the
Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS),
entertained and informed more than 100 collision repair professionals at the
July meeting for the East Bay Chapter of
the California Autobody Association.

member of our group, due to injury
or illness? Do we step up and help
them, like the geese do? “Whenever a
goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of
trying to fly alone, and quickly gets
back into formation to take advantage
of the “lifting power” of the bird immediately in front. Lesson: If we
have as much sense as a goose, we
will align ourselves with people who
are headed in the same direction—where we want to go.”
“When the lead goose gets tired,
it rotates back into the formation and
another goose flies at the point position,” Schulenburg said. “Lesson: It
pays to take turns doing the hard
tasks and sharing leadership—with
people, as with geese, interdependent
with one other.” Have you ever noticed that the same people all seem to
hold all the leadership roles in any
volunteer-based organization? We
could learn a lot from geese.
Thinking about how even geese
know the way to get it done should
be a call to action to engage body
shop owners to share leadership roles
in organizations such as CAA and
SCRS.
After his inspirational opening
and some background information
about the scope of SCRS, Schulenburg discussed a variety of current industry events such as OEM repair
procedures and industry standards of
repair; the usefulness of the SCRS

Schulenburg kicked off his
speech by discussing his take on the
classic metaphor “Lessons from the
Geese” from a book written in 1972
by Dr. Robert McLeish, which identifies migration habits of geese and
applies the concepts to human behavior and teamwork. Schulenburg
drew an analogy between geese acting cooperatively and how professional organizations like
CAA and SCRS need members that will support and
work together as a team to
make the industry stronger as
a whole. Instead of being for
the birds, Schulenburg’s remarks served to separate the
fowl from the foul.
“As each goose flaps its
wings, it creates uplift for the
bird following,” Schulenburg
explained. “By flying in a From left, Melissa Perez, District Sales Manager for
“V” formation, the whole FinishMaster; Trish Pickens, District Manager for Audatex
and Gigi Walker from Walker’s Auto Body network at the
flock adds 71% more flying East Bay CAA chapter July meeting, held at PPG’s San
range than if each bird flew Francisco Business Development Center in Concord, CA
alone. Lesson: People who
share a common direction and sense Guide to Complete Repair Planning
of community can get where they are (www.scrs.com); an overview of the
going faster and easier because they very helpful Database Enhancement
are coasting on the thrust of one an- Gateway (www.degweb.org), and led
a rousing conversation on the topic
other.”
Still flying along with the geese that every body shop owner in the
analogy, Schulenburg asked the audi- country is discussing—State Farm’s
ence, what happens when we lose a PartsTrader program which is being

36 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

piloted in four U.S. cities.
PartsTrader is the online parts
bidding system that was created for
State Farm as they seek a refined so-

awaiting their feedback, but the buzz
from the industry so far has not been
positive, Schulenburg said.
“This system has yet to demonstrate any real advantages or
benefits for repair facilities
or parts vendors, and has
demonstrated the potential to
lead to inefficiencies, greater
costs to manage, and smaller
profit margins based on the
feedback we have heard
from participants both in the
U.S. and other markets,”
Schulenburg said.
From left, Jamie Maltbie, General Manager at Jim’s
“Mandating the systems
California Auto Body in Concord; Jeff Rogers, Manager
that are used and the
at Jim’s California Auto Body; Jim Boyle, Owner of Regal
Collision Repair in Vallejo; Sam Snodgrass, Sales Rep for
processes in which they will
3M and Mark Juell, Zone Director for PPG, contemplatbe used, it certainly opens
ing geese formations after the meeting.
the door for insurers to exercise much greater control over the relution for the parts locating and orpair business and their purchasing
dering process. In short, PartsTrader
decisions.”
enables a shop to upload an estimate,
PartsTrader is scary to many in the
giving both new and used parts venindustry for a wide range of reasons,
dors an opportunity to see all the
many of which stem from the conparts on the estimate and offer a
cerns relative to how important parts
“bid” on the pricing they can offer for
profit is to the health of most colliany part of the estimate. State Farm
sion repair businesses, Schulenburg
is sampling the system currently in
See SCRS Director, Page 41
100+ shops within select cities, and

• Dedicated Wholesale
Staff with Over 100
Years Experience
• Large Inventory
• Daily Local Deliveries

It’s hard to believe, but as I write this,
SEMA (Specialty Equipment Marketing Association) Show in Las Vegas,
the biggest automotive show of the
year, is only a few short weeks away.
The Aftermarket, OEM’s and
Suppliers take over three exhibit halls
with displays and
exhibits of their
latest products and
vehicles. SEMA is
a very important
event for all of us
at Foose Design,
and we never miss
it. This year at SEMA, we will feature
three purpose-built Foose vehicles.
We also have a special build that will
return to the SEMA Show—more on
that later. The builds we are completing will feature the design and fabrication efforts of everyone at Foose
Design and here are some details.

WD-40 Company Projects
Once again we are teaming up with
WD-40 for two vehicle builds in support of SEMA Cares Charities (Childhelp®, The Victory Junction Gang®
Camps, SEMA Scholarship Program).
WD-40/SEMA Cares Foose ‘53 Ford F100
It’s the 60th Anniversary of WD-40®
Multi-Use Product. To celebrate this
milestone, Foose Design is customiz-

ing a 1953 Ford F-100 Pickup, designed and built to maintain the look
and feel of that truck used to deliver
the first case of the product approximately 60 years ago. We will keep the
original look, but update the drive
train, suspension, wheels and tires and
paint. I created a tribute, period correct, Rocket Chemical Company logo
for the doors.
We have many suppliers that are
helping us build, including LMC

Truck Parts. The final design will be a
tribute to the WD-40 Company and its
history. The vehicle will be displayed
in the Grand Lobby near the Central
Hall, showcased at key West Coast
auto shows and events in December
2012, and then auctioned at the 2013
Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction
in Scottsdale, AZ, with proceeds benefiting Childhelp and The Victory
Junction Gang Camps.

WD-40 Multi-Use Product, created by Rocket Chemical Company in
San Diego, was developed as a water
displacement material and was first
used on the Atlas Missile Program as
a rust inhibitor. The final formula was
the 40th formula tried, hence the name
WD-40.

WD-40 Specialist/SEMA Cares Foose
Ford F-350
This project celebrates the new WD40 Specialist™ line of products and
will serve as the companion truck to
the ‘53 Ford F-100. The build will
have us working in
a much larger scale
to create a true work
truck that has appeal for automotive
as well as construction and skilled
trades audiences.
Following SEMA,
the Ford F-350 will
be used for a 16month promotional
period and then auctioned with proceeds funding scholarships through SEMA Cares.
Starting with a stock 2013 Ford F350, I am developing a set of custom
body kit parts including new front and
rear wheel flares, side rockers and
front chin spoiler. We will have custom axles made for the correct tire
placement and will include numerous
upgrades to the already stout stock
suspension. I plan on making a set of
very cool, one-off Foose wheels for

38 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

this project. The custom paint will be
completed at Foose and should turn a
few heads.

ELDOROD
A significant part of my design history is Eldorod, the first car I designed as a full-time employee at
Boyd’s Hot Rods. Ironically, it is the
last car to be delivered out of the
Boyd Shop before it closed in 1998.

Based on a 1949 Cadillac, it is sometimes referred as the sister car to the
Larry Erickson designed Billy Gibbons owned Cadzilla. My original
design had a lot of details that we removed or abbreviated in the interest
of delivering the car. When current
owner Chris Andrews purchased the
car, he contacted
me to ask if I would
be interested in redoing the vehicle
based on my original sketches. I
jumped at the
chance. Many subtle design features
based on the original design that previously lived only
on paper are being
fabricated for this
re-fresh. The hood
line has been changed, the front
windshield reshaped to a more gentle
curve, the dash has been reshaped to
match the hoodline, the wheel openings have been reshaped, front and
rear bumpers are restyled including
bumperettes from a ‘56 Nomad, and
a grille opening from a mid 50’s
Olds. New chrome side trim has been
custom made and the top has been reshaped, surrounded by a thin chrome
trim border and re-skinned in Mercedes canvas. The original maroon
color has been repainted in a deep
BASF blended blue, based on the
color found in my original illustration. A completely new leather inte-

rior has been designed, stitched and
installed. I am excited to unveil this
re-creation in the booth of my sponsor, BASF Paints.

SEMA SPECIAL BUILD
Now for some exciting news I mentioned earlier. Overhaulin’ is back!
After nearly a five-year break, I am
back with my talented crew changing people’s lives by completely rebuilding their neglected vehicles.
The show will air on Velocity and
Discovery Channel. Stay tuned for
details about new episodes airing in
the fall. We are well into the filming
on our first episodes, but here’s the
good part about the special
build—we are going to do a live
build of Overhaulin’ at SEMA! We
are planning on securing a new vehicle from one of the OEM’s and then
we will walk through SEMA like
you would in a supermarket, picking
out all the parts and components on
the display floor to be included on
this build. We will do all the disassembly, fabrication, customization,
paint, interior and rebuild in front of
a live audience. We even have some
special plans on how this vehicle

may be given away to one lucky
SEMA attendee. Stay tuned to my
website www.chipfoose.com as I
will be providing more details as we
get closer.
For those of you attending SEMA
this year, make sure to check out my
schedule for autographs and appearances. It will be published on my website about two to three weeks before
SEMA. If you are not attending
SEMA, maybe you should reconsider,
there’s going to be a lot of great innovative products to see, and one lucky
attendee might drive off with a new
Foose vehicle!
I hope to see you in Las Vegas!

Custom Corner

Rich Evans is the owner of Huntington Beach Bodyworks and an award winning painter and
fabricator. He offers workshops in repair and customization at his facility to share his unique
talents. For contacts and design samples visit www.huntingtonbeachbodyworks.com

Some Cool Tips and Tricks to Save You Time and Money
with Rich Evans

In this month’s column, I want to share
some new and cool tools that have
saved me time. As I always say, time is
money, especially in this industry.
Many of you are fixing plastic
bumpers and you’ve probably come
across parts that are broken, made out
of polyurethane or plastic, or sometimes you can’t get the parts you need,
or the parts are too expensive for your
customer.

I came across a company called
Automotive Welding Solutions that has a
product called the Mixplast Hot Stapler
(or Mixplast Magic Stapler) for plastic
repair. It’s a plastic panel repair system,
a 2 in 1 machine that staples and welds
plastic. It saves on the cost of a machine. It’s battery operated, no cables
are needed, it offers quick cooling time
and fast repair time and has three positions for angled staples, which is cool

for tight areas. It has three or four different types of staples for different usages. It also comes with a handy storage
case. Since I’ve found this tool, I’ve
found more uses for it every day in the
field—like door panels where a tab is
ripping. I used the stapler to repair the
tab without having to use glue, bonding
or waiting. It’s an instant repair.
In one of my projects, I used the
stapler on a front bumper filler that was
missing a corner. The only place to buy
this filler is in Europe and that would
have cost the customer $250 with a six-

week wait because the part was on back
order. Instead, I used the staple gun to
re-apply the piece, positioning the staples where I thought the strengthening
needed to be. I put the staples in and
melted the staple so it became part of
the part, and then I cut the staple prongs
and ground them down, then used 3M
panel bond #08115 to level it out. I let
it dry overnight, then came back and
sanded it with 80-grit, then 150-grit,
getting it shaped and ready to prime. I
had a repaired part in less than 24 hours.
It saved the customer time and made a

great repair and it bonds like it was
never broken. I wish I had this tool 15
years ago!
My second tip is a very affordable
tape we get for a few dollars from
Home Depot. It is multi-purpose foil
tape and it becomes a tool when you are
fabricating and modifying pieces on a
project. I learned this technique from a
good buddy of mine, Richard Wood,
when we were up in Canada filming a

new TV pilot called World Wide Car
Building. We had nine guys under one
roof, and you can imagine the creativity
and the different ways people do things,
so I walked out of there learning five or

ten years worth of new ways to do
things.
The foil tape is a tool, a gig and a
clamp all in one.
Here’s a good example of a project

where I used the foil tape. We took a
‘54 panel truck and turned it into a
pickup truck, dropping it on a 2006
SSR chassis. The chassis is wider and
needed clearance for wheels, so we
needed to weld the fenders to the hood
and we welded the grill and front
bumper all in one piece, mocked it up,
and then had to cut
the fenders and
widen them 2-1/2
inches. We were able
to put gussets underneath and get fender
placement without
removing the original position of the
headlight, but I
needed to make 20
different cuts into the
fender and I had to
try to roll that as a
natural curve back into the headlights
because there was a 2-1/2 in gap where
I cut it.
My buddy Rich came by and
showed me a few tricks on how to use
this foil tape. Normally, we’d have to
hold everything together by spot welding pieces and re-spot welding them.
Using the foil tape allowed me to shape
the fender to get the look I was looking
for, with the tape holding everything together from the outside with the natural contours so it doesn’t look awkward.
I’ve got 20 different pieces so how is a
clamp going to hold that? The tape was
strong enough to hold everything in
place so I was able to shape everything.

From that point, after using the tape, I
took the hood off and turned it upside
down and was able to go to the inside
and tack everything together while the
tape was holding it, then flip the hood
back over and remove the tape.
This is just one way of using
the taping method. The tape
can be used: #1 as a tool, #2, to
hold everything in place, and
#3, to give you an actual visual
of how everything is going to
look.
I’ve been really busy the
past few months. I mentioned
the 10-day shoot in Nova Scotia, Canada, with Curtis Customs, filming an episode for
our documentary called World
Wide Car Building. We will unveil the
two vehicles we built there at the
SEMA show. One of the builds is a
2004 H2 Hummer that we chopped five
inches and made it into a two-door.
I am also working on another show
called Build it With Rich Evans. For
more information, see BuildItWith-

RichEvans.com. In this show, I am getting back to the nuts and bolts and
helping DYI builders who are working
on cars in their garages, where most
professionals start.
You can keep up with me on my
fan page, Rich Evans Designs on Facebook, or visit me at RichEvansDesigns.com or HuntingtonBeachBody
works.com.
Thanks to my sponsors, I couldn’t
build anything without them: 3M, Infratech, Woodward Fab, Lucas Oil,
SPX products and others listed on my
sponsor page at HuntingtonBeachBodyworks.com. Keep on wrenching.
Hope to see you at SEMA.

What with running his shop and being
the town mayor, Johnny Anders, 62,
owner of Anders Paint and Body
Shop, at 701 N. Swenson in Stamford,
TX, doesn’t have much free time on
his hands. But when he does have free
time, he puts it to good use, creating
larger-than-life metal sculptures out of
car parts.

Cindy and Johnny Anders

With no art background, Anders
starting creating his whimsical sculptures from car parts back in the late
70s. He first created “Dino”—a 30foot long, 8-foot tall Brontosaurus, inspired by the large automobiles of the
day—the Pontiacs and Buicks that
were called dinosaurs because of their
size and fuel consumption. The sculpture is mostly made out of control
arms, rocker arms, leaf springs and a
piece pipe for the spine.

The Dino sculpture is located in the
city park with two other of his projects,
a millipede made out of car wheels and
a 40-foot-long praying mantis. Two of
his sculptures are located alongside the
highway, beckoning passersby to stop
awhile and visit Anders’ small town,
population 3,400, located in northern
Jones County in West Texas.

His favorite and “most fun” piece,
he says, is his ‘97 Chevrolet pickup.
Street legal, the vehicle has two front
ends. Anders enjoys driving it around
town and it’s been dubbed with a couple of names: “Coming And Going”
and “Push Me Pull Me.”
Anders’ largest metal sculpture is
his calling card—a 25-foot tall T-Rex
that guards the front of his shop and
makes his business easy to spot. It
took Anders two years to build it during his spare time. The T-Rex is made
out of leaf springs, oil pans, rocker
arms and control arms out of various
pickups and cars.
Over the years,
Anders has created
six metal sculptures, including a
giant spider, 60 feet
across and 25 feet
high, that sits alongside U.S. 277, looking spooky at night
with glowing red
LED lights for eyes.
A 1957 or 1958 Isetta car serves as
spider body and the legs are drill pipe.
His latest piece of artwork is called
“Bedlam” and is his version of Stonehenge. Made out of damaged and discarded pick up truck beds, he and his
friends lined up 12 truck beds in a circle, trying to make it look like face of a
clock. The truck beds were buried upright 18 inches into the ground and
poured in concrete. The sculpture has
become a place for the kids to
graffiti, which is OK with him
because it allows young people to come out and spray
paint without harming anything. A tall cross made of
chrome wheels stands in the
middle of the pickup beds.
For his next project, Anders
is planning to create a huge
Texas black beetle, also
known as the stink bug. He
will use an older Volkswagen
and build legs from drive
shafts and feet from brake
shoes.
As mayor of his town and a business owner, Anders doesn’t have
much free time.
“Operating a business and taking
care of stuff, you don’t have a whole
lot of time for it. I just do it in my
spare time,” he says. “My dad was a
city council member here for 12
years and he passed away in 1994. In

40 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

1996, I got talked into running for a
spot on the council and I’ve been the
major for the last eight
years.” As mayor, part of Anders’ job has been to clean up
and beautify the city.
Anders has lived in Stamford his whole life. In fact, he
lives 100 yards from where he
was born. “I wouldn’t live
anywhere else. You know
everyone by first name and
they know you. It’s a good
feeling.”
Anders’ paternal grandfather, Fay
Anders, arrived in Stamford in a cov-

ered wagon in 1923 and opened his
first business, called “Limp In, Leap
Out,” making minor repairs and fixing

flat tires. From the late 1930s to the
mid 1950s, Fay’s Wrecking was one

of the largest wrecking yards in the
entire Southwest. His granddad’s shop
burned in the 1950s and his father
opened another one down the street.
His granddad had six boys, all who
were in the body shop business, two
now retired and the others have passed
on. When Johnny Anders graduated
from high school, his father tried to
get him to go to college, but Anders
just wanted to work on cars. Anders
took over the business after the death
of his father in 1994, and now he’s the
only one left keeping the family business alive. Anders has a son and two
daughters, all who have followed different career paths.

Auto Industry Customer Satisfaction Hits 20-Year High
Customer satisfaction with major automakers has hit a high point in the
nearly 20 years since such data has
been tracked by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The survey
compiles data from approximately
70,000 customer interviews and measures customer satisfaction with more
than 225 companies in 47 industries.
The auto industry achieved an
overall ranking of 84 out of 100, tying
2009 for its best-ever mark.
But this year’s performance is
the industry’s most impressive, because customer satisfaction was artificially high in 2009, said David
VanAmburg, managing director of
ACSI, based near Ann Arbor, MI. In
2009, customers were happy because
vehicle prices hit rock bottom when
the U.S. government launched the
cash-for-clunkers incentives in the
summer of 2009.
Prices have since rebounded—
but consumers still are satisfied. ACSI
measures three-year satisfaction among
new vehicle buyers.
“The automakers are paying
more attention to improving the quality of the vehicles themselves. This
might be a little more real, a little
more sustainable,” VanAmburg said.
Six of the nine domestic auto

brands improved from 2011 to 2012:
The Jeep brand rose from a score
of 79 to 83, while Dodge edged up
from 79 to 81. The Chrysler brand
went from 76 to 78—though still
ranked at the bottom of the industry.
“Obviously there are lots of indicators that Chrysler has been improving,” VanAmburg said. “Its financials
have been showing that; its sales are
up. They had such a gap with Ford
and GM. They’ve closed that gap, but
there’s still some ground to make up.”
Ford’s Lincoln brand, which is in
the early stages of a makeover, had
the best score, at 90. But VanAmburg
cautioned that its declining sales in recent years helped its score.
Despite improvement among the
domestic brands, foreign companies
still lead. Toyota’s Lexus luxury brand
was second-best at 89, up 2 points.
Subaru (87), BMW (86), Hyundai (85),
Mercedes-Benz (85), Toyota (85) and
Volkswagen (85) all beat the industry
average.
GM’s Buick posted the third-best
score at 87, up 2 points. Chevrolet
rose 2 points to 84, while Cadillac
slipped a point to 86. Ford brand fell
a point behind Chevrolet to 83. Nissan (83), Kia (82) and Mazda (82) all
trailed the industry average.

Continued from Page 36

SCRS Director

said.
The rest of the discussion primarily consisted of a recap of industry
reactions to the program from the
discussions the week before at the
Collision Industry Conference in San
Antonio, TX. He highlighted some
direct quotes and comments attributed to State Farm and PartsTrader
representatives throughout the
process. In addition, he presented introductory documents provided by
both companies that demonstrate the
lack of choice for both repairers and
vendors in test markets. All of the information was presented in a manner
that provided attendees with things to
consider, but without ever directly
soliciting them to agree one way or
the other.
During the discussion part of the

evening, Toby Chess, a collision veteran, Autobody News columnist and
I-CAR trainer, made an interesting
observation: “If the insurance companies can dictate where or how you
buy your parts, wouldn’t the logical
next thing be paint?” This got the attention of some of the top PPG managers in attendance.
At the end of the meeting while
several CAA members were standing
in the rear parking lot and making
small talk, Schulenburg’s geese analogy became a little more concrete. As
if on cue, a formation of geese appeared in the sky and flew directly
above the PPG Business Development Center. Several CAA members
as well as Schulenburg saw them,
honking and flying in their famous
‘V’-formation.
“They wanted a curtain call and
there it was!” Jim Boyle, Owner of
Regal Collision Repair in Vallejo, exclaimed.

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One of Southern California’s Largest Collision Parts Inventories
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in a future column? Email him at Auto.Insurance.Insider@gmail.com

Sale of Estimate Data Isn’t New and Shops Don’t Own That Data
with The Insurance Insider

Have you sold your soul to the devil?
I’m here to tell you that if you have a
computerized estimating system, and
you electronically communicate with
an insurance company, you have.
You signed away your rights when
you executed the contract to pay the
information providers a monthly subscription fee.
What does that
mean to your business?
Estimating data generated by your shop for a
direct repair program
and electronically sent
to that insurance carrier
is now useable by the
information provider.
Of course it’s an instant
revenue stream for that
company as well. Every
day thousands of new
estimates are added to
their extensive data library.
Think this is shocking? How could they do
this? Is this legal? News
flash: This has been going on for more
than 20 years. The collision repair industry, now worrying about data mining and privacy, is just a little slow
getting to the party. But welcome to
the party. You are the guests of honor.
Just sign on the dotted line.
Former U.S. President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt famously stated,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear
itself.” He wanted to spur optimism in
the American public. So: What do you
fear?
I actually think Roosevelt was
right and it’s fear itself. Most shops
aren’t worried about the information
providers selling confidential information such as their customer’s name, address or phone number. Most reputable
vendors have contractual language stating that that’s protected information.
Aside from that, in today’s litigious society, people are always seeking op-

portunities to sue and cash in. It’s just
not worth taking the risk.
So what is being sold? The estimating data itself. Why? It’s data that
insurance companies rely upon to
make decisions, identify trends, manage their business and in some instances, establish market guidelines.

This data is critical to managing the
insurance business and has significant
monetary value.
So, you may ask, if the information providers are making money on
estimate data from my shop, why
isn’t someone paying me? It’s a reasonable question.
Personally, I think if shops were
paid for the use of the data, the persistent question of “Who owns the
data?” would disappear. The fear
would be reduced to squabbling over
the table scraps the information
providers left behind.
Remember Cuba Gooding Jr.
repeatedly shouting, “Show me the
money” in the movie Jerry Maguire?
So, to our esteemed information
providers reading this article: Show
the shops the money and you will
quickly hear “Where do I sign?”
Given that this practice has been

Give us your opinion on matters affecting the industry.

write us!
publisher@autobodynews.com

42 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

going on for over two decades, why
hasn’t it been established who owns the
data? I’ve read many articles on the
subject, none of which answers the
question. Unfortunately, I won’t be able
to provide an answer either. Until there
is a precedent set with case law on this
matter, it will be a subject to debate.
I am, however, going to venture a
guess and tell you that you don’t own
the data, and to think otherwise is delusional. You wrote an estimate on behalf
of the insurance company. Here’s what
you do own on that estimate.At the top
of the estimate is the name of your
business. You legally own the rights to
the name of your company. That’s it.
Does the estimate data belong to
the vehicle owner? Absolutely not. The
vehicle owner owns the right to their
confidential information on the estimate
(insurance policy number, address and
phone number). Shops should be protecting the customer’s data (and themselves) by having an agreement in place

with their vendors to ensure data is not
shared without their written consent.
Does the information provider
own the estimating data? In a word,
‘no.’ They don’t own anything other
than the rights to aggregate the data
contained in the estimate specific to
the actual repair of the vehicle. That’s
data that you signed over to the devil
when you signed your agreement with
that company.
Does the insurance company own
it? In my not-so-humble view, ‘yes’ we
do. Out of all the potential parties, the
carrier is the most logical owner. By
virtue of our direct repair program contracts, we have an agreement with a vendor (body shop) to produce an estimate
to repair the vehicle. You agreed to participate in the direct repair program. You
agreed to create an estimate and upload
it. In return, you are referred to our policyholders as an option. We directly or
indirectly paid for the service.
In other words, we own it.

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The Refinish Distributors Alliance
(RDA) is a national group of refinish
distributors dedicated to providing
quality services and products to their
customers. Founded in 2008 by seven
members, they now consist of 15
members and are represented in 179

locations over 26 states. RDA’s marketing brand is IMPACT. They understand the importance of marketing
their brand and use IMPACT when referring to the group and everything
they do in the group.
Representing a cross-section of
all major refinish brands, IMPACT
members do over $400 million in
sales as a group, comprising around
15% of the refinish business nationwide. Their goal is “to leverage the

creative solutions to benefit the whole.
Combined, IMPACT members have a
better opportunity to compete with
large national chains while maintaining their independence.
IMPACT was formed as a forprofit company. Members are all equal
shareholders and thus invested in the
organization’s success. One way that
RDA members enjoy the benefits of
group strength, through combining
business and marketing programs as
well as combined purchasing power,
is through the development of the Impact Brand. According to their
brochure, IMPACT “provides our
members an exclusive and powerful
‘Common Theme’ approach to marketing products and services to the
collision industry. Members are fully
engaged in working to develop and
implement products and services that
benefit each member of the group” by
providing a variety of tools to aid
members in effectively competing
against both local and national distributors.

IMPACT uses the funding created
from the group’s purchases to increase
the resources and programs offered to
members and their customers. Examples of these programs include discounts on AAIA membership, credit
card processing through First Data, discounts on business forms through RR
Donnelley and partnership with I-CAR
training. Members can offer their customers the IMPACT Elite Member program. This program is for the premier
collision shops and will help them become stronger, more competitive and
grow their business. IMPACT has put
together business and marketing tools
at discounted rates. As an IMPACT
Elite member they will receive savings
on uniforms, Phoenix Solutions
Group’s marketing services, credit card
processing, the Impact BizUnite market place and much more.
Since IMPACT’s inception,
Blickenstaff has seen positive effects
to his business operations, including
the creation of better buying opportunities from a margin perspective and
a better gross profit margin. The networking and sharing of ideas with
members has been beneficial for him

and his company. He notes that involvement with IMPACT “allows
members to differentiate themselves
by providing customers with something that no one else can.”
Blickenstaff notes that it has become increasingly tougher to compete in the distribution business as
the insurance, collision and distribution industries are all going through
consolidations which make it difficult for the ‘little guy’ to compete
against big national players. IMPACT members are better able to increase their footprint by “banding
together from a resource perspective.”
The RDA/IMPACT group is
unique and the first PBE group
where independent distributors who
are all leaders in their markets have
come together. IMPACT’s members
have integrity and commitment to
the success of their businesses as
well as their customers’ businesses.
Their goal is the group strength that
allows members, collectively, to
compete on a national level on which
they have no chance individually.
See Refinish Distributors, Page 52

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A recent RDA member’s meeting was well attended to represent the IMPACT brand. Inset: Bernie
Blickenstaff (upper) is president of IMPACT. Robert McKenzie (lower) is Executive Director.

strength of individual members in an
effort to become even stronger as one
cohesive group.”
Bernie Blickenstaff, president of
IMPACT as well as CEO of Pro Finishes Plus, Inc. in Lanham, MD, notes
that IMPACT was formed to allow
members “to accomplish things as a
group that we can’t do individually.
We are stronger together and unified.”
Executive Director Robert E.
McKenzie, Jr. adds that “IMPACT’s
members all have common interests
and a common desire to grow their
business.” By collaborating as a
group, members are able to discuss
problems in the industry and arrive at

Their approach to growing business includes lowering sales and distribution costs, increasing overall
market share and profits, marketing
new products and programs, training
and education support. They have also
created the IMPACT Collision Solutions web site, which provides members access to a variety of buying,
marketing and training programs for
their businesses and their customers.
Only members of their group sell IMPACT Performance Products, their
premium private brand of products,
offered through manufacturers with a
proven record of consistency and
quality.

44 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

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SCRS REPAIRER DRIVEN EDUCATION (RDE) series will feature
seminar offerings. Each of the courses has been individually
selected or crafted by SCRS because the content specifically
focuses on issues and information that are relevant to collision repair professionals operating in today’s marketplace,
and appeals to the diverse array of marketplace perspectives
that exist within the collision repair industry.
PRICING
RDE Headline Session: Innovation Forum = $75
each (advanced) | $85 each (after Oct 15/onsite)
1-2 RDE regular session tickets = $65 each (advanced) | $75 each (after Oct 15/onsite)
3-6 RDE regular session tickets = $50 each (advanced) | $65 each (after Oct 15/onsite)
SCRS RDE Sky Villa After-party* = $75 each (advanced) | $85 each (after Oct 15/onsite)
*All guests must have a ticket to enter; ticket
is included with Full Series Pass

RDE Full Series Pass BEST VALUE! = $300 each
(advanced) | $350 each (after Oct 15/onsite)
Full series pass includes 7 RDE regular sessions
(one in each available time slot) + Headline session + Ticket to After-party on Thursday night. With
Full series purchase, sessions are as little as
$28.12 each

Tuesday, Oct. 30 / 12:30PM – 2:30PM

RD1 – Hybrid Power & Platforms (David
Gruskos, RAE Inc.)
For a shop and technician to have an understanding of how the manufacturing of the new car bodies and hybrid power train are combined together.
With the future of many new hybrid platforms, it is
critical to know how to identify the metals and/or
composites when developing a plan for repair or
replace. This presentation will show the OEM’s
plan on educating the repair facilities. Attendees
will learn:
● Proper tooling for new repairs
● Where to find repair information
● How to identify repair methods
● How to develop a repair plan for working with
hybrid power platforms

RD3 – Monetize Your Opportunity: The Benefits of Business Diversification (Tom Myroniak,
SEMA)
Industry events, such as the SEMA Show, demonstrate the greatest value to business owners when
the value proposition translates into a tangible return on investment when you return to your business. As the collision repair market continues to be
laden with small margins and undue pressure,
many repair businesses are looking for opportunity
to bring in added revenue streams while increasing
the frequency of contact with their customer
through expanded service offerings. This session
will give the attendee an overview of:
● Where to find unique and complementary business opportunities on the show floor

● How to map out your strategy for finding the
ideal opportunities for your business
● How value added services can be integrated
into your business
● How to benefit from the marketing advantages
of consumer oriented service offerings to bolster
your collision business.

OEMs communicate their repair procedures in different ways. This session will help you interpret
OEM procedures (symbols, supplies, equipment,
etc…) and help in making a proper repair. Participants will:
● Increase their understanding of OEM repair procedures
● Aid in improving estimate accuracy
● Aid in completing repair to OEM recommendations

RD5 – Change the Way You Think at a CORE
Level (Bill Park and Dr. Byron Bissell,
MpowerU)
The purpose of this presentation is to provide a
clear understanding of what junk thinking is, show
evidence of existence in the market, and provide a
clear direction for attendees to depart from the junk
thinking environment. We believe, and can show
that junk thinking is responsible for 80% of the
problems in one’s business, and throughout the
presentation we will provide tangible insights that
will allow the attendees to identify and remove
those barriers in their business. The lack of quality
thinking has led to enormous disasters and disappointments. And it’s not only thinking through the
solutions to the gnarly problems...more often than
not, it’s the painful reality that you’re working on
the wrong problems. We hope to FREE their
minds! Attendees will:
● Leave understanding the premise of JUNK
THINKING
● Learn how to identify whether or not they are
solving the wrong problems in their business
● Feel empowered and confident to sift their thinking in order to break away from the herd

RD6 – Numbers You Can Take to the Bank:
Measuring and Improving Performance (Tom
Hoerner, BASF)
A look at the data required, both financial and nonfinancial, to effectively manage a collision repair
business. Ratios, percentages and tracking trends
are explained within the context of running a business. Participants will learn how to use a solid understanding of their numbers to increase their
profitability and the success of the business.
Course attendees will receive the following objectives during the session:
● Understand how to collect accurate and timely
data from their business
● Develop a working knowledge of collision cen-

46 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

ter performance indicators, and what affects them
● Understand how to use those KPIs to measure
and improve their performance with the goal of increases net revenues.

Wednesday, Oct. 31/12:30PM– 2:30PM

RD7 – Paint Shop Throughput: A Quick
Changeover Approach (Robb Power and Brett
BiaLowas, PPG Automotive Refinish)
Quick Changeover, sometimes referred to as
Setup Reduction, is a systematic approach to eliminate or reduce non-value added activities and time
in the setup and/or teardown of any processes
within production, allowing companies to more
quickly and efficiently change from one product to
another. Quick Changeover is a critical component
of Lean Manufacturing and is a foundation for gaining critical capacity to meet customer demand and
grow operations. This seminar will focus on applying quick changeover techniques and principles to
the refinish area within collision, more specifically,
to optimize booth cycles for any shop faced with
needing to gain capacity and throughput while
being held back by the current cycle time of their
booths. While this seminar will focus on the refinish area, these principles can also be applied to
other areas within collision where better transition
and utilization of equipment and assets is involved.
Participants will:
● Understand the principles and techniques of
quick changeover as applied to spray booth optimization
● Learn techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of their refinish operation as well as learning
to see opportunities for booth cycle time reduction.
● Be introduced to the concept of flow and resource planning in relation to gaining throughput
and capacity in the refinish operation of collision
repair.
● Learn simple methods to standardize processes
and enable continual improvement.

RD8 – Marketing to Consumers - Supporting
Customer Pay Sales Efforts (Steve Trapp,
DuPont Performance Coatings & Robert Rick,
Gates Business Solutions)
With 35-40% of customers asking repairers to write
a customer paid estimates and a historical 50%
closing ratio on these estimates, improving sales
skills for these more price sensitive customers is
key. This course will review and practice the advisory sales process and how it uniquely applies to
this segment of prospective customers. We will
then discuss sales support tools which would be
useful to help reinforce your unique value proposition to close more sales. Finally, we will reinforce
follow-up strategies to help optimize performance.
At the end of the course we will create a personal
improvement plan per attendee. After completion
of this session, attendees will be able:
● To briefly review the customer pay segment its
% of estimate traffic and closing ratio for this segment - Sell the why...
● To explain the advisory and sales process to lay

a foundation to a unique approach to these price
sensitive prospects.
● To role play using this process with fellow classmates to ensure both parties are comfortable with
the sales process model.
● To review various tools available to repairers to
help offer proof that your repair center should be
their choice.
● To review various follow-up strategies which
have proven effective in this segment
● To gain alignment on the process tweaks in
each person’s selling strategy they would like to
make when they return.

RD9A - Understanding Design Based Repairs
(Richard Perry, CHIEF Automotive)
This course will help attendees understand necessary information about the new metals being used
in the construction of today’s vehicles, and how
they impact the repair process. We will discuss
methods for metal identification and the proper repair methods by material. In addition, the course
will focus on why automobile manufacturers have
made such an aggressive transition to the use of
the advanced steels in new vehicle construction. It
doesn’t matter who is working on the vehicle,
whether it is the person writing the estimate or the
technician performing the repairs, it is pertinent to
first find out what the vehicle’s structural content is
before starting any structural repairs. Attendees will
be able to:
● Make sure they are able to find the proper repair
methods, and that they have the right equipment
before commencing repairs
● Ensure that their technicians have the proper
training and ability to perform the repairs correctly.
● Leave with an understanding of why you cannot
use the same repair methods on today’s vehicles,
as those that were being used just a few years earlier.

Wednesday, Oct. 31 / 3:00PM – 5:00PM

RD9B - Going Green Doesn’t Have to be Expensive (Steven Schilling, GRC-Pirk Management)
Shops can save a lot of money by greening their
practices, rather than spending a lot of money.
Marketing tricks and television advertising do their
best to convince us that in order to become more
eco-friendly we have to buy more stuff – but that’s
not true. If you replace a perfectly good item just
to buy a new eco-friendly one, you aren’t really
doing anything to benefit the environment! So with
that in mind, this presentation will discuss 101
ways that shops can save money by practicing
green. Attendees will find many simple things to
implement in their shop to go green and attain
recognition on the www.findgreengarage.com public service website! Attendees will leave the session understanding of:
● What it means to “go green” and to be a good
environmental steward
● What is sustainability, energy conservation and
pollution prevention

RD10 - Dedicated vs. Universal Fixtures: The
Pros and Cons (Shawn Hart, Car-O-Liner Company)
This presentation is designed to explore the pros
and cons of the dedicated and universal fixture repair systems. We will look at a number of different
areas that shops, technicians, and insurance companies have issue with or questions about regarding each of the repair systems. These areas
include: time, cost, and flexibility, ease of use,
OEM recommendations, and accuracy. After completing this session participants will be able to
identify:
● The differences between dedicated and universal fixture repair systems.
● The pros and cons of each type of repair system.
● The difference between anchoring and fixturing.

RD11 - Lean Flow Concepts: Improve Your
Hours Completed Per Day (Steve Trapp,
DuPont Performance Coatings & John
Sweigart, The Body Shop)
Repairers have been asked to focus on improving
the hours completed or repaired per day, and this
seminar will help you refine your administrative and
production processes to improve performance.
Looking not only at the value of the steps in the
process, but also the flow of the processes is key
to improving this number to industry leading performance. We will give very specific best practice
recommendations to enable reduction and improvement of customer service provided. We also
will discuss how to sell the change to your staff
once you return and make them own the improvement and be supportive of the enhanced best practices. Objectives of completing this workshop are
to:
● Understand hours per day, standards for performance and what step change is possible
● Understand both the administrative and production processes impacting hours completed per
day and review best practices to improve
● Understand how coordination of work flow enhances performance when you have large volume
and need to keep flow moving
● To re-sell the value of improving the metric to
the technicians and office staff, and get them to
see the value in change
● To discuss how to prioritize the improvements
and then to establish visual controls to keep them
in place long term.

Thursday, Nov. 1 / 12:30PM – 2:30PM

RD12 - Maximize Your Web Presence (Mark
Claypool, Optima Automotive)
Having a website has one purpose, and only one
purpose; bringing potential customers to your door.
If your business is going to have an online presence, it is NOT enough to just have a website. To
be truly effective, your site needs to bring you
prospects, needs to be searchable by people looking online for the products/service you provide and,
most importantly, it needs to convert website visitors to customers. After going through this session,
you will learn:
● Website essentials, such as what needs to be
taken into consideration when building and having
a website online
● About Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Just

having a website doesn’t mean people will come
to it. It must be optimized, and SEO is a science
unto itself that few website developers get right. In
this session you will learn what to look for.
● Be prepared, participants will engage in live reviews of attendee websites and social media efforts.

RD13 - Make More Money WITHOUT Spending
an Arm and a Leg! (Toby Chess)
Cultivating positive change in your business can
come across like a daunting task fraught with challenge and expense that many businesses just
aren’t able to justify in the current economy. What
if you knew that there were simple straightforward
areas throughout your business that could streamline your operation, and increase your profit by reducing your waste and expenses?
For collision repair businesses there is a ton
of opportunity to improve your business with very
little investment if you know where to look. This
session is going to offer a number of proven ideas
that will decrease cycle time, reduce comebacks
and increase quality; and the investment costs will
be under $500.00! Forget about learning fancy
buzzwords associated with process improvement,
this session is going to give time-tested examples
of ways to improve your business and make more
money for very little, if any, up front expense.

RD19 - Bidding Wars: A Global View on the
Possible Economic Impact of Insurer Involvement in Parts Procurement (David NewtonRoss, Collision Repair Specialists of Australia
(CRSA))
Online bidding requirements for parts procurement
has just entered into the U.S. market recently, but
there are other countries, such as New Zealand,
where the parts tendering practice was constructed
by the country’s largest carrier for its own use in
2003, and has since become a mandatory practice
for all carriers. This session will provide attendees
with a global perspective on:
1. The economic impact the online bidding program
has had on repair facility margins in NZ
2. The procedural impact the program has had on
cycle times and the estimating process
3. The changes the program has had on the repair
facilities relationship with parts vendors
4. How the program has impacted part type selections
5. Why the program succeeded in NZ while failing
to grab hold in neighboring countries such as Australia.
6. What the potential impact is that this type of
parts procurement could have on the United
States.

Thursday, Nov. 1 / 3:00PM – 5:00PM

RD14B - Importance of Repair Standards in
Completing a Safe and Seamless Repair (John
Spoto & Shawn Collins, 3M)
We audit many repair facilities and see common
repair practices that lead to improper and unsafe
repairs. This session will expose the audience to
some of the most common repair processes that
result in improper repairs, and we’ll review solutions around the man, machine, materials and
methods to create seamless, safe repairs. Finally,
we will introduce the audience to Job Instructional
Training methods to sustain these repair standards. Our attendees will leave the room with:
● An understanding of how to avoid common re-

pair process mistakes that lead to improper repairs
● An understanding of many repair standards
● A roadmap to sustain adherence to these standards through Job Instructional Training
● A benchmark of critical success factors in order
to sustain proper repair standards

RD15 - Waterborne Refinish Coatings: What
Are You Waiting For? (Jeff Griffin & John Parran, PPG Automotive Refinish)
You are here at SEMA to learn about the latest and
greatest technology. Do not let this session pass
you by. This is your chance to learn about the latest technology that is having an impact in the collision repair and custom markets. You will learn
about the capabilities and the unique advantages
of water technology in today’s demanding markets.
Most important come and hear about what the
masters in car building, such as Charley Hutton,
have learned while making the move to waterborne
finishes. Attendees will receive:
● A brief history of water based refinish coatings
which demonstrates the technology is over 10
years old and is in its third generation.
● The advantages of water based coatings compared to current technology
● The status of North American legislation
● Answers to general questions fielded on water
technology, on topics such as training, needed
equipment, color match capability and more.
● Color range for the custom market and where
we see this going
● A Question & Answer session with the presenters, accompanied by industry expert Charley Hutton, Painter & Owner of Charley Hutton’s Color
Studio.

RD16 - Bulletproof Your Company: Effective
Human Resources, Policies and Procedures
(Cory J. King, Fine, Boggs & Perkins LLP)
Lawsuits by current and former employees are skyrocketing. The financial impact of such suits on a
company can be devastating. While an employer
cannot stop a desperate employee from filing a
lawsuit, they certainly can put themselves in a position to deter and ultimately win lawsuits before
they ever get filed. It all starts with effective HR
policies and procedures. Bulletproofing your company against employment claims is much easier
than you think! Participants in this seminar will receive practical, real world instruction on what policies and procedures are essential to lawsuit
avoidance, how to implement those policies and
procedures, and what makes an effective policy
and procedure in comparison to what gets employers into trouble. Participants are encouraged
to bring their current employee handbook or policy
manual for hands-on analysis and review for compliance. If you have employees, this seminar
should not be missed!

Friday, Nov. 2 /10:00AM – 12:00PM (HEADLINE PRESENTATION)

RD2012 - RDE Headline Session: Game Changers - Innovation Forum
Emerging ideas serve as the lifeblood for businesses and industries alike, offering the competitive edge necessary to enhance business growth
and profit. Businesses that have the foresight to
harness those advantages through rethinking products, services, processes, and business models
are able to materialize the greatest level of differentiation between the remainder of the market in

the eyes of your customer. So how does innovation prosper in the collision repair industry, and how
can you foster innovation as a core value that
shapes the framework of your business?
Join leaders in the collision repair industry
for the RDE Game Changers - Innovation Forum
headline presentation of the Society of Collision
Repair Specialists’ 2012 Repairer Driven Education series at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. At this
highly interactive event, you’ll learn:
● What innovation can look like in the collision repair business — including technology, product,
service, and business model innovation — and
how it is becoming core to business strategy.
● How leading companies manage for innovation,
including the internal and external partners needed
for success, overcoming barriers, and utilizing tools
and technologies to accelerate implementation.
● Key success factors for making your company
a leader in your market through embracing ongoing innovation as a core function of your business.
● Forum Moderators, Panelists and Participants
will be announced at a future date.

Friday, November 2 / 12:30PM – 2:30PM

RD17 - Vehicle Knowledge for Triage, Blueprinting and Estimating (Larry Montanez III,
P&L Consulting)
Participants will learn how to identify and understand the advanced material substrates in today’s
vehicles, how to diagnose the sustained damage
by pre-measuring the vehicle to ascertain the
amount of sustained damage, if any. Participants
will learn the process and procedures of Triage and
Blueprinting to ensure all sustained damage is accounted for and all associated repair procedures
and materials are covered to ensure an accurate
damage report is written, that not only ensures a
correct safe repair, but ensures there will be no delays or missed items to increase the facility’s profitability. Attendees of this session will leave with the
understanding of how to:
● Eliminate the need for supplements by writing
complete damage reports the first time
● Pre-measure the vehicle efficiently to increase
profitability
● Properly blueprint a vehicle to ensure no repair
delays
● Diagnose damage with a better understanding
of applied collision forces
● Apply logic from the estimating system procedural pages and use OEM repair information

RD18 - Achieving Service Excellence by Applying LEAN Thinking (Steven Feltovich, Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes)
This course is exclusively designed for
SCRS/SEMA participants, and the workshop will
provide participants the knowledge needed in order
to achieve customer service excellence through
lean thinking principles. Attendees will learn to use
lean management techniques to transform or continue to improve your customer service delivery,
and discover the extreme competitive edge in
achieving service excellence the lean way! Understand the process driven approach to delivering the
“ultimate customer experience.” Attendees will benefit from the following workshop objectives:
● Explain the driving factors behind the experiential service economy, and how to become more
profitable with a customer focused strategy.
● Establish a proven method for providing the
value actually desired by each customer.

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 47

● Learn how to build a strong brand based on customer service excellence.
● Apply a simple process that improves the efficiency and effectiveness of your customer facing
staff.
● Find out how to identify service excellence professionals inside and outside your organization.
● Attendees will leave this class with a self-assessment tool in order to evaluate their own organization’s level of service excellence.

RD14A - He Who Controls the Data, Controls
the Truth (Michael Anderson, Collision Advice)
Have you ever wondered where insurance companies get the data which they use to manage Key
Performance Indicators they request from your
shop? Have you ever been told your severity is too
high in comparison to the market, or that your
posted labor rate is excessive?
In this riveting session, Mike Anderson will
outline the process in which your estimating and
management system information can be harvested, aggregated, depersonalized and then reported on in the form of trending reports and data
analytics. Using his background as a multiple location collision repair business owner, as a consultant, and as a participant on advisory councils
for Information Providers and Insurance Carriers,
Mike is going to illustrate how repair facility information is used to re-apply pressure on your business, and prepare you with the necessary
resources and knowledge to counter that pressure.
In fact, this course will help you outline an action
plan to utilize your own internal data as a resource,
and how you can establish processes in your business that produce more consistent and accurate
estimate information.

Whether you have multiple estimators working out of one facility, or multiple facilities, having
consistency in your estimating practices is critical
to your success. By setting defined estimating
practices, procedures and policies for your estimators, and following through with management
practices which reinforce that those standards are
followed, you will be able to better control the accuracy of your data output; producing data that accurately represents the charges and tasks
performed in your business.
We will look at websites, tools, forms and
technology applications that will allow your estimators to become more efficient and ACCURATE
in their duties of writing a thorough damage analysis. Tools such as the SCRS Guide to Complete
Repair Planning, blend within a panel refinish
break down, Structural Repair Calculator and a variety of other documents and tools will be showcased.
This course will provide Collision Repair
Facility owners the resources to consistently
train their estimating staff how to reflect your
standard of repair in the estimating process,
while generating the most comprehensive and
profitable repair plan necessary to return the
vehicle to Pre-Accident Condition. “Writing it
right” has an impact on the growth of your bottom line, but it also has an impact on the industry through the estimate data it produces.
The information in your estimate can play a significant role in how the reports from the information providers reflect market practices, which
is one of many reasons that having all the necessary and performed operations listed is critical to your success. This course is ideal for
Owners and Managers.

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JOB TO BE A
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1-800-VOLKSWAGEN
FAX: 925-934-0786
diritovw@aol.com

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1-888-489-5001

FAX: 562-426-3550
parts@timmonslongbeach.com

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213-747-7246

FAX: 213-222-1272
Ask for Carlos or Erasmo

WE WANT TO BE YOUR SOURCE FOR REAL VOLKSWAGEN PARTS.
With your skill and our parts, every collision repair will be a bang-up job. And that
will add up to more repeat business for both of us. Call your order in today.
48 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

Continued from Page 35

Chrysler Bulletin

• Solvent wipe with suitable product
before application of adhesive.
• Initial application of adhesive
should be spread from the bare metal
onto the e-coat to provide a continuous corrosion barrier.

THE REPLACEMENT STRSW WELDS
SHOULD DUPLICATE THE ORIGINAL
WELDS IN:
• Size
• Quantity
• Location
NOTE: replacement welds should be
within ¼-inch of the original location
while trying to avoid placing new
welds over old welds. Where replacing only the exterior panel in a 3T sit-

ALLDATA Revamps Website

ALLDATA has a completely revamped
website featuring testimonials, new
Facebook and Twitter feeds, and visitor
polling. “ALLDATA.com is our company’s face to the world,” said ALLDATA President Jeff Lagges. “As the
number one provider of automotive software, we needed a website that reflects
our rapidly evolving technology, our
suite of solutions and our achievements.”

uation, the new weld should be placed
about 3/8-inch away to avoid shunting and reestablish a 3T weld.
• Never use “weld-thru” primer.
• Completing all welded panel replacements requires applying a coating of creeping rust inhibitive
material in all areas where any welds
were made, even where weld-bonded.
• Replacement panels must be installed as provided, and utilizing the
methods described in this bulletin,
unless additional guidelines are made
in another Chrysler Collision Repair
Bulletin, Chrysler Body Repair Manual, or other Chrysler approved publication.
Failure to follow these repair
guidelines will result in a vehicle
which may not duplicate the original
design intent in terms of function,
safety, and durability.

ASA Announces its New 2012
Associate Members

The Automotive Service Association
(ASA) has announced its newest associate members: Blue Light Integrated
Services, Indiana Autobody Association (IABA), Motor Trade Association
of South Australia and Specialty
Footwear International LLC—all of
which joined the association during the
second quarter of 2012.

Precise fit and finish, easy
installation and a limited
warranty direct from KIA
— all genuine advantages
of genuine KIA parts. Your
local KIA retailer has all the
parts you need.

parts@autogrp.com
www.northcountykia.com
M-F 7am - 6pm
In San Diego Over 10 Years

Vallejo

(707) 638-1825
(707) 554-2637 Fax

bvahl@momentumautogroup.com
M-F 8am - 5pm
Sat 8am - 3pm

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 49

Social Media for Shops

Ed Attanasio is an automotive journalist based in
San Francisco, California. He can be reached at
era39@aol.com.

Customer Appreciation Events Build Customer Base
with Ed Attanasio

If we’re talking about social media
and all it entails, what’s more social
than a party? Yes—you’re going to be
picking up the tab for this party, but in
the end it will lead to new customers
while you’ll also be strengthening the
ties you have with your existing ones.
Customer appreciation promotions and events have been taking
place since the 1600s, when you
bought six pigs, you got the seventh
one free! Whether it’s a giveaway, a
discount, or in this case, an event—
showing your customers that you care
matters and will benefit your body
shop in many other ways down the
road.
When it comes to customer retention efforts, the whole theory is
Image Perceived; Mission Achieved.
If you’re going to the trouble of doing
a customer appreciation day, do it
right and make it special. Make it exclusive and really pull out of all the
stops. Call it a VIP Customer Night

and make it an invitation-only affair
and limit the attendance.
Step it up a notch and it will pay
off in the long run. For example, nix
the hot dogs and burgers and do a surf
and turf thing. How about a clam
bake? All-you-can-eat crab or ribs or
chicken--what the heck, cook a whole
cow! Food is the straight shot to peoples’ hearts and an all-you-can-eat
setup is always a winner.
Do giveaways galore—from
baseball hats, pens, t-shirts to better
items like jackets, polo shirts and
maybe even executive-style gifts such
as leather bound notebooks or fancy
briefcases. I’ve been to so many
SEMA and NACE shows I can’t even
count them all, but I still get excited
when I get some high-end merchandise with a company’s name on it.
How about giving everyone a swag
bag, with fun gifts people will remember long after the event? Sure it
will cost you a few dollars, but in the

50 SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS | www.autobodynews.com

end it will lead directly to new business and more referrals.
Do a raffle at your customer
event and give the money to a local
charity. Ask your vendors to donate
raffle items, such as tickets to sporting
events, toys for the kids, household
appliances and mini-vacations. Give
everyone a small number of free raffle
tickets and put them in their swag bag,
but if anyone wants to buy more,
there’s a nominal charge.
Get your entire crew onboard to
make your customer appreciation day
even more special. Train your employees to promote your event and
leverage it whenever possible. “Wow,
Mrs. Smith, this is a pretty serious
fender bender. But the good news is—
you qualify for our VIP Customer
Party next month!”
This method of keeping your old
customers and getting new ones works
for body shops all over the county, yet
only a small number seem to embrace

the approach. To prove my point, I
contacted several body shops to see if
their customer appreciation events are
successful and to find out if they garnered repeat business or helped them
to reap any new customers as a result.
Ernie Fogarty, the owner of
Bayview Collision Center in Jacksonville, FL has a five-year-old shop
that has hosted several customer appreciation events and received a significant amount of new customers by
doing them, he said. “The customer is
#1 around here and always will be,”
Fogarty said. “One happy customer
can lead to 8-10 referrals, so we want
to stay connected to our customers as
much as we can and as long as we can.
We invite everyone in the community
to our customer appreciation day, including the insurance companies we
work with and their families.”
Fogarty also works with a wide
range of charities to give back to the
community. The one they’re raising

money for currently is called the First
Coast No More Homeless Pets organization, a cause he personally believes
in. “We’re saving dogs and cats in this
area so they won’t get put down. It offers us a great opportunity to show the
community that we’re not just about
the money. We plan on being here in
Jacksonville for many years, so it just
makes sense.”
Rob Ellision, Marketing Manager at Chantilly Auto Body in Chantilly, VA, can identify positive
feedback and new customers derived
from a series of customer retention
events, he explained. “We’re very aggressive about going after new business and we recently did our very first
customer appreciation day and it was
a huge success. It was a cloudy, cold
day and we still got 300 people here
and I know for a fact that we’ve gotten at least 10 new customers as a result. Most importantly, it created a
buzz from the event, laying the foundation for other things we want to do
in the near future.”
Other events Ellision is planning
include a car show, displaying vehicles on loan from several local car
dealerships and collectors, he said, as
well as Friday afternoon barbecues for

customers. “Our appreciation event
attracted families, so now we’re going
to do a car show that will appeal more
to men between the ages of 20 to 50.
In addition, we’re going to host a free
BBQ lunch for our customers when
they come down and pick up their cars
on Fridays. These are two new things
we’re going to use to attract new customers and keep in touch with our existing ones.”
Kareem Abouzeiz, owner of
Knockout Collision Center in Chico,
CA does customer-centric events and
definitely sees the value in doing them
on a regular basis, he said. “The last
one we held definitely resulted in
more than a few new customers.
When most people get their cars fixed
at a shop, they never get to meet or interact with the owner. That’s why we
open up our whole shop for the public
at our customer appreciation day and
make our entire staff available for our
guests. We’re all about our people, so
we want the public to meet them and
get to know them. Building ongoing,
long-term relationships is the key.”

www.autobodynews.com
CHECK IT OUT!

GAINSCO Selects Mitchell
as New Claims Provider

Mitchell, a leading provider of technology, connectivity and information
solutions to the Property & Casualty
Claims and Collision Repair industries, announced that GAINSCO
Auto Insurance®, a provider of specialized personal auto coverage, has
selected Mitchell as its new long
term provider of auto physical damage claims processing solutions.
Under the terms of the multiyear agreement, GAINSCO will implement Mitchell WorkCenter™
Total Loss, developed in conjunction
with customer satisfaction and vehicle pricing expert J.D. Power and Associates, as well as Mitchell’s
assignment, repairable estimating
and reporting solutions.
Greg Castleman, Sr. Vice President and Chief Claims Officer, for
GAINSCO Auto Insurance, said,
“We selected Mitchell as our auto
physical damage solutions provider
of choice because we were extremely
impressed with the functionality of
its product suite and the service-orius of
your
opinion
on
entedGive
approach
the Mitchell
team.
They went above and beyond to provide a solution that fits our needs and
integrates seamlessly with GAINSCO’s claims management system.”

I-CAR Launches Tech
School Training Program

I-CAR has launched a comprehensive collision repair training program
for schools that will be introduced for
the 2012-2013 academic year.
The program, called the I-CAR
Professional Development ProgramEducation Edition, is a performancefocused training curriculum that
provides a standardized learning system for students, I-CAR said. The
curriculum aligns with the specific
roles, education and knowledge needs
defined within I-CAR’s Professional
Development Program, which was
introduced to the industry in 2010.
I-CAR said the training program
is structured into three successive
levels, referred to as I-CAR ProLevels, which recognize students for
completion of their role-based training. I-CAR said it will provide
schools with guided course materials,
instructor guides and student performance evaluations.
Students who graduate from the
program will be better equipped with
the skills needed to begin working efmatters
affecting
therepair
industry.
ficiently
in a collision
facility
at the start of their careers, I-CAR
said.“

The IMPACT board has monthly
conference calls and holds four
meetings a year. They also hold two

D’Angelos Automotive & Industrial Coatings of Oxnard, CA is a
founding member of RDA and
thus has been involved with the
organization since October 2008.
President Art D’Angelo notes that
he became involved with RDA because “our future shows that we
need to be coming from
strength.” He believes that building lines, such as Impact, allows
RD to establish a larger footprint
and increase their buying power.
Additionally, the rebates that they
receive from manufacturers provides funding for marketing and
allows them to build programs to
improve their businesses which
brings more value to the body
shop. D’Angelo notes “in today’s
competitive market, it is important to be part of a bigger group

membership meetings per year. The
membership meetings offer networking opportunities as well as
seminars on topics, such as Increasing Customers Business, Removing
Cost from Distribution, Business

to increase your footprint…
though RDA is still trying to reach
our identity, we are getting there
now.”
Leading Edge Auto Refinishes, Inc. of Tempe, AZ is also a
founding member of RDA, and
they became involved because
“with the way the industry is
going, it is necessary to be a part
of something bigger than yourself”, according to John Rang. “It
is important to find like-minded
people and combine resources because we’re better together…
there is no sense in being the
biggest guy in your immediate
market when you are inconsequential on a national scale.”
Leading Edge particularly finds the
networking and idea sharing that
RDA offers to be beneficial.

SHINGLE
SHINGLESPRINGS
SPRINGS

SUBARU
SUBARU

Wholesale’s
Our
Business
For
Your
Business
Wholesale’s
Our
Business
For
Your
Business

Building, Time Management, Marketing and Sales. Their next member
meeting will be held October 29-30
in Las Vegas just before SEMA.
IMPACT is selective about who is
permitted to join the organization as
they allow no competition within the
group, a concept that lends to members’ willingness to collaborate on
solving problems they face in the industry. Those interested in joining
RDA/IMPACT should contact Executive Director Robert E. McKenzie, Jr.
directly at 731-217-9081 or via email
at robertemckenzie@me.com. IMPACT continues to seek new members
that share a common desire to improve
their business and work collaboratively within the group to address national industry issues. McKenzie
expects to see additional growth
within the group during the last quarter of 2012 and into 2013 because “we
have some exciting things happening
to assist members with growing their
business.” Besides the addition of new
marketing programs, IMPACT is currently in the process of creating a more
effective website which they hope to
have published in September or October 2012. The URL address is
www.impactcollisionsolutions.com.

Vehicle Service Group (VSG), parent
company of leading vehicle service
equipment manufacturers Rotary
Lift®, Chief™ Automotive Technologies, Forward® Lift, Direct Lift®,
Revolution® Lift, Hanmecson®,
nogra® and Blitz®, is making substantial investments in its global
manufacturing facilities.
The company is investing more
than $1 million in its North American manufacturing facility this year,
and recently broke ground for a
54,000-square-foot expansion of its
Asian manufacturing facility.
VSG is installing a new laser
manufacturing system and two additional CNC machining centers in its
North American facility. The investments are designed to improve responsiveness to customer orders,
reduce manufacturing costs, increase
the facility’s productivity, and provide capacity for future market
growth.
Expanding the Asian facility is
expected to increase manufacturing
capacity by more than 80 percent.
Construction is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2012,
with production ramping up next
spring.

Tom Franklin has been a shop sales and marketing consultant for fifty years. He has
written numerous books and provides marketing solutions and services for many businesses. He can be reached at (323) 871-6862 or at tbfranklin@aol.com.
See Tom’s columns at www.autobodynews.com under Columnists > Franklin

Conversations That Sell Jobs, No Need to Mention Entropy
with Thomas Franklin

Remember when you last drove a a system.”
brand new car? Think back and reThe second law of thermodymember how wonderfully solid it namics dictates that eventually every
felt. If you’ve ever driven an old car machine will wear out and quit workthat rattled and squeaked and made ing. As parts wear, the movement beall sorts of random noises, you could comes more and more random and
really appreciate that new car. It had disorderly until the machine stops alnot yet yielded to the relentless at- together. For our fellow craftsmen in
tack of the forces of entropy, one of the mechanical repair field, entropy
with Dick Strom
the most powerful forces in the uni- is their best friend, providing them
verse.
with a continuous flow of vehicles in
No, entropy is not a new disease need of repair.
of the colon. Entropy is usually
But how does this apply to peothought of as the natural tendency for ple and sales? The forces of entropy
things to be come disordered over bombard us everyday. We have uptime. Like your shop. Without work sets, disagreements, and sometimes,
done to clean it up it tends to get even fights. These entropic forces
messier on its own, right? Entropy is often bring disorder to our lives. And
a concept that affects everything perhaps one of the most unsettling
from loose parts to information.
experiences a person can have is an
The formal scientific definition automobile accident that interrupts
with
Amaradio
of entropy is first
“a Lee
measure
of a hisJr.
or her life and, at least temporarsystem’s capacity to undergo sponta- ily, takes away the valued method of
neous change” and second, “a meas- transportation they rely on every day.
ure of the disorder or randomness in An estimator generally meets and

Industry
Overview
Trust
your order to the collision parts
specialistsCHECK
at these fineIT
Dealers
OUT!
with Janet Chaney

talks to the vehicle owner or driver at
this very upsetting time. This could
make a sales conversation very difficult or it could make getting the job
very easy. A while back I did several
weeks of sales training for estimators
at a chain of collision centers. A couple of the estimators were already
very competent, closing the majority
of jobs they estimated. They instinctively used what something called
dissipative conversation.
The forces of entropy affect us
all. We all experience friction and
wear and tear, and in the long run,
we also run down and stop working.
But, in the short term, we have a
powerful advantage over machines,
and a more cheerful prospect thanks
to the work of Nobel laureate Ilya
Prigogine, a Russian-born Belgian
theoretical chemist. Prigogine received his Nobel Prize in the 1970’s
for proving that increased order in
nature and evolutionary progress
come about because of the entropy
of chaos and disorder—not despite
it. Prigogine said we have an advantage because the open systems of
living creatures have an ability that
inanimate machines lack. That is the
ability to dissipate the pressures that
cause entropy. He noted that this
second law of thermodynamics applies only to closed thermodynamic
systems, where no energy enters or
exits the system. In an open system,
like that of human beings—and the
earth itself with its energy input
from the sun—are able to dissipate
or throw off the forces of entropy
and thus adjust, shift, change and, in
the case of a traumatic experience
like an accident, feel much better.
We can think of this as energy input
to overcome disorder. Like the work
you do to clean up your shop, for example.
To take another example, we dissipate anger and frustration by venting it— “letting off steam” —kicking

the wall, banging our shoe on the
table—or perhaps meditating. We
dissipate frictions by conflict resolution discussions, negotiations, agreements, and occasionally smacking an
opponent in the jaw. But if given an
opportunity, we can release negative
emotions through dissipative conversation. The estimators who closed the
most jobs used dissipative conversation. Apparently, a major flaw in
many sales people is a tendency to
talk endlessly and listen very little.
These estimators did exactly the opposite. They encouraged what we
might call verbal “image streaming,”
allowing their prospect to speak
without interruption to a natural stopping point. In conversation, we are
often eager to have our say, and will
interject a comment or take the conversation in a different direction if we
lose interest in what the other person
is saying. This is detrimental to the
dissipation process. Let ‘em talk.
Their accident was a highly traumatic
experience and may call for a lengthy
conversation to dissipate the stress.
A busy estimator may have several estimates to write and people to
talk to. While there is a limit to how
much time can be given to any one
prospect, the estimators I talked to
said they could listen to their
prospect until a calm point was
reached, without harming their own
efficiency. The important point is the
fact that these prospects being given
the opportunity to release some emotional pressure usually did leave their
car and their keys with the listening
estimator. I’m sure that most managers and estimators reading this article have listened to more than their
fair share of accident stories, but it’s
not easy to resist the urge to cut the
story short and to move on to getting
the job sold. The question to ask oneself is, “If I had listened a bit more,
would my closing ratio be better
today?” It’s worth a try.

Give us your opinion on matters affecting the industry.

write us!
publisher@autobodynews.com

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 53

Continued from Cover

Proposition 33

proposition would change that.
However, opponents point out
that it would do something that would
radically change the industry—insurance companies could surcharge people who didn’t have insurance in the
past. This has lead to claims of unfairness, with opponents saying the bill
would disproportionately affect lowincome and new drivers. And this new
ability for the insurance companies to
determine prices based on previous
coverage would alter the current law
on guidelines for calculating rates.
“The [failure of the lawsuit] was
the campaign’s second failure in two
days to convince a court to hide facts
about Prop 33 from the Official Ballot
Pamphlet sent to all California voters,”
according to Consumer Watchdog,
which has vehemently opposed the
proposition, as well as the similar
Prop. 17 on the 2010 ballot.
Prop. 33’s proponents appealed a
decision by a Superior Court judge
denying the campaign’s effort to edit
the language of the Attorney General’s
ballot label and title and summary,

which read:
“Changes current law to allow insurance companies to set prices based
on whether the driver previously carried auto insurance with any insurance
company.”
Prop. 33 backers opposed the language because according to them it
conveys the idea that the measure
would allow insurers to set prices,
something that is prohibited by California law.

D’Arelli v. Bowen and Price Setting
The lawsuit filed by Mercury Insurance
Company billionaire George Joseph
claimed that the title and summary that
would be read by voters contains “inaccurate language that is highly likely to
prejudice voters against the measure.”
Included in the suit were the state
attorney general and the California secretary of state.
As it stands now, Proposition 103,
passed in 1988, sets uniform guidelines for how California auto insurance
companies are allowed to calculate
rates. Using three sets of mandatory
criteria—a driver’s record, the number
of years he or she has driven, and the
number of miles driven per year—insurance companies determine a per-

QUALITY IS ALL WE
THINK ABOUT. THAT
AND QUALITY.

son’s premium. In addition, there are
16 optional rating factors. According
to a legislative analysis of California’s
law, they are the following:
1) Vehicle type, 2) Type of use
(pleasure, business, commuting, etc.),
3) Percent use of the vehicle by the
rated driver, 4) Number of vehicles, 5)
Academic standing, 6) Training courses
completed, 7) Vehicle add-ons, 8) Vehicle performance capabilities, 9) Driver’s gender, 10) Marital status, 11)
Policy persistency (within the same
company), 12) Smoker status, 13)
Number of policies, 14) Claim frequency in surrounding area, 15) Claim
sizes in surrounding area, 16) Secondary driver characteristics.
But Prop. 33 would add another
factor to the 24-year-old set of guidelines governing how rates are calculated, and this is fueling the controversy.
The fact that Prop. 33 will give insurance companies new power to increase premiums for good drivers led
the California Democratic Party to
vote to oppose Prop. 33 at its recent
Executive Board meeting.
Proposition 33 is funded 99% by
George Joseph, whose company Mercury Insurance has a “deserved reputation for abusing its customers and

intentionally violating the law with arrogance and indifference,” according to
the California Department of Insurance.
The initiative’s official proponent,
Michael D’Arelli, is an executive in a
Sacramento insurance lobbying group
funded by Joseph.
“George Joseph and Mercury Insurance refuse to accept even the nonpartisan analysis of Prop. 33 and are
using his virtually unlimited resources
to try and maintain the deceptive marketing of this insurance deregulation
initiative,” said consumer advocate
Doug Heller with Consumer Watchdog
Campaign, which is part of the coalition opposing Prop 33. “Prop 33 is just
another insurance industry trick aimed
at helping insurance companies at the
expense of Californians, and now
Joseph is trying to enlist the courts in
another of his frequent battles to overcharge consumers.”
Mercury brought a similar, unsuccessful legal challenge to silence the Attorney General and consumer groups
opposed to Proposition 17, a nearly
identical measure sponsored by Mercury Insurance on the June 2010 ballot.
That initiative was defeated by the voters in an upset after the company spent
$16 million.

An Accident is No Laughing Matter When it Comes to Lost Keys
by Melanie Anderson

The day of my memorable accident
was nearly foretold—it began with
startling news and ended with lost
keys. And, yes, there was a bang in
there too. First thing that morning, my
teenage daughter hit me with the surprising news: she no longer wanted
my beloved 2004 Kia Sorento. I had
offered to give her my mid-sized
SUV when she got her driver’s license. Instead, she was opting for her
grandparents’ Dodge Intrepid that
was nearly as old as she was but still
had low miles as her 90-year-old paternal grandparents didn’t drive it
anymore.
I was heartbroken at this news. I
thought she loved my car as much as
I did. Our Sorento had safely transported us up and down the state of
California on many long drives. We
lived in the foothills of the gold country, and since Lake Tahoe was practically in our back yard, we often drove
further into the Sierra mountains for
day trips. That car routinely carried
teenagers, football, volleyball and
softball gear, teammates, friends. That

car was a testament to the story of our
lives. I even drove it in the snow, and
being a native southern California girl,
I didn’t enjoy it one bit.
In response to her shocking news,
I made a declaration: “Fine! I will
keep that car until its dying breath!”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
A few hours later, I got caught
in heavy, stop-and-go traffic near

2004 Kia Sorento after the fateful car fire

midtown Sacramento on Business I80 and rear-ended a vehicle as I attempted to pass. I swear, we were
going slow, so it wasn’t that big of a

bump. Instead of pulling over, the
guy gets out of his car while we’re
still in the slow lane! Who gets out
of a car in the middle of traffic? Annoyed, I waved him over. I remained calm as I followed him to
the side of the road. I remained
calm as I bent down to retrieve the
insurance information out of the
glove box underneath the passenger
seat. I must have
noticed the smoke
just then, because
I got out of the car
without the paperwork, but I am not
sure, because in
all my calmness, I
may have actually
been going into
shock.
We stood next to
my car—me, the
guy I hit, and his
wife. I watched the
flames shooting out
beneath the bent hood, and I was mesmerized, like watching a campfire.
The other woman started freaking out,
jumping up and down and screaming
at her husband to move their car away
from my burning vehicle. I calmly
watched the flames, until I heard my
inner voice yell, “THE CAR IS ON
FIRE!” I jumped into action then,
reaching back into the car for my
phone and purse. I walked away, a little worried the car might explode, because that’s what happens in the
movies. But I really had nowhere to
go. Behind me, the roadside disappeared into a freeway bridge and that
wasn’t safe either. I stopped short of
the bridge, putting a little distance between me and the car fire, to start
making phone calls. First, I called 911
to report the fire.
Of course, the operator wanted to
know where I was. I knew exactly
where I was. I had driven this stretch
of road hundreds of times. I had done
this commute for years. But I struggled to tell her the location. My brain
had shut down. First, I told her the
wrong freeway, then I told her the
wrong direction. Finally, I managed to
blurt out that the Sutter Cancer Center
was behind me. Then I called a friend
to come pick me up.
Meanwhile, a semi truck pulled
over and the driver ran to my baby
with a fire extinguisher, but it did
nothing to dampen the flames. The

next vehicle to pull over was a fire
truck! A waterless fire truck, it turns
out. The firefighters jumped into action anyway, opening all the doors to
my vehicle and throwing things onto
the side of the road. They grabbed my
case of CDs and I wondered why they
would risk their lives for old CDs. I
still thought the car might explode.
But, while they were at it, I called out
“Get my portfolio! Get my briefcase!”
Then the police and another fire
truck arrived. I missed the excitement
of watching them put out the fire because I was talking to the police and
the other driver. Soon, everyone was
gone, except for me and one police officer. I was feeling a bit shaky by then.
Someone had called a tow truck and
the driver came to ask me for my keys.
Meanwhile, my friend was trying to
find me and was on the wrong side of
the freeway. The cop didn’t want him
pulling over at the scene and made
arrangements for the tow truck driver
to drop me off at a nearby exit where
my friend would be waiting.
It was sad to see my lovely car up
on the racks of the tow truck and I
averted my eyes from the damage, the
ash, the blackened engine and hood.
As I heaved myself and all my belongings up into the tow truck, I realized then how sore I was from the
accident. And then I started to cry. (It’s
what girls do.)
I knew I was making the tow
truck driver uncomfortable, but I
couldn’t stop sobbing. By then, the
shock had worn off. He kept looking
at me anxiously, evidently nervous
about having a crying woman in his
cab. To make matters worse, he was
getting radio calls from all the other
truck drivers in the area.
Apparently, my car fire had
caused quite a stir among the other
tow truck drivers. Embarrassed by all
the radio chatter, he denied rumors of
having my car while glancing worriedly at me. I felt sorry for him. I’m
sure he wasn’t expecting me riding
shotgun that day. Although I was still
crying, my inner funny bone was taking it all in and somewhere inside I
was laughing hysterically. It wasn’t
until I got home that I realized the tow
truck driver hadn’t returned my keys.
It seemed like a long story to explain
how I lost my keys.
“Just say you lost your keys,
mom,” my daughter advised. “No one
is going to believe this story.”

www.autobodynews.com | SEPTEMBER 2012 AUTOBODY NEWS 55

Don’t Get LETF Behind for Not Knowing the Law
state’s labor regulations and cites
those companies that don’t adhere to
Here is the scenario: One afternoon a the law. Suddenly, dire thoughts begin
group of very business-like individu- darting through your brain. “I know I
als walk into your shop. Are they get- run an honest shop and we try to adting an estimate? No. Are they selling here to all the laws, but have I forgotsomething? Absolutely not. Or are ten something?” you ask yourself. It’s
they here to simply discuss the advan- a frightening moment for any business
tages of waterborne paint? Not likely. owner and plenty get cited and fined
every month throughout the
state for a wide range of offenses.
With more than 50 people
in attendance at the Santa
Clara County California Autobody Association’s (SCCCAA) July meeting, five
representatives from LETF
made presentations and
shared information that is deFrom left, Estimator Rudy Solorio with B2B Perfection Auto signed to help body shops in
Body; John Martin, Territory Sales Executive with Mitchell; order to operate within the
JR Radcliffe, Account Service Manager with Mitchell were laws of the state. Consisting
on hand to listen to presentations by the LETF
of five organizations and a lot
After business cards get ex- of acronyms, LETF includes the Divichanged and pleasantries are con- sion of Labor Standards Enforcement
veyed, you quickly realize that you’re (DLSE); Division of Occupational
being inspected by the California Safety & Health (CAL/OSHA); EmLabor Enforcement Task Force ployment Development Department
(LETF), a team that enforces the (EDD); Board of Equalization (BOE);
by Ed Attanasio

sioner Mark Janatpour from the DLSE
was the first speaker at the outreach
meeting and discussed topics such as
overtime, meal periods, rest periods
and time recordkeeping when it comes
to your employees, their work breaks
and their pay.

Janatpour stressed the fact that
employers need to give their workers
proper lunch and rest breaks, even
when the shop is busy. He explained
that the authorized rest period time
needs to be based on the total hours
worked daily at the rate of 10 minutes
net rest time for every four hours
worked, without exception. The breaks
cannot be combined, such as giving an
employee one 20-minute break toward
the end of the day. In addition, if an
employee works more than five hours
in any given day, he or she is entitled
to and required to take a 30-minute
lunch. If an employee works six hours
and that’s the end of their working day,
they don’t need a lunch, as long as the
employee consents.
Janatpour also stressed the importance of good, thorough record keeping. So many shops get cited and fined
for not maintaining their records. Accurate production records for employees paid at piece rate and overtime
need to be properly documented.
“These are some red flag areas that
many body shops run into and it’s one
of the first things we look at when we
do our inspections,” Janatpour said.
CAL/OSHA District Manager Jan
Hami explained what employers

should know about the inspection
process and the ramifications. “First
off, we always come unannounced.
Initially, we have an opening conference before we do a walk-through of
your worksite. We may also want to
interview some of your employees
and review documents when applicable.”
Hami also advised body shop
owners about how to act when LETF
is in your shop.

plus. We’re enforcement, not consultants and we never issue warnings, but
we’re here to help you in your abatement efforts.”
“It all comes down to doing the
right things, staying up-to-date on the
current laws and running a safe working environment,” Hami said.
LETF’s fines for violations can be
as high as $7,000 for “non-serious” issues, according to CAL-OSHA’s website
(www.dir.ca.gov).
Serious
offenses that present a realistic
hazard with possibility of
death or serious physical harm
due to an actual hazard in your
shop can be up to $25,000,
and willful, repeat violations
can cost up to $70,000.
EDD Manager Kim Wesley talked about the ongoing
distinctions about who is an
employee vs. an independent
Assistant Managers for Car West Auto Body are
Vivi Cardenas (left) and Imran Abbass, at the July meetcontractor?
ing of the CAA’s Santa Clara chapter
Several SCC-CAA members
“Understand your rights and ask asked why some shops are able to hire
a lot of questions,” he said.
their employees as independent con“Take good notes and document tractors while others seemingly can’t
everything and gather your necessary do the same?
staff to assist you. If you can rectify
Wesley explained that there are
something on-site right there while only a very few true independent conwe’re doing the inspection, that’s a big tractors out there.

“If you’re hiring an independent
contractor, you can only control or direct the results of the work they’re
doing for you,” she said. “But, you
cannot control or direct the way
they’re doing the work. That’s a very
significant difference.”
BAR Program Representative III
Donald Johnson works out of the organization’s San Jose, CA, field office
and discussed his role and the way the
BAR works.
“We don’t conduct routine inspections anymore, because our time
is limited,” he said. “There is always
going to be some cheating in auto repair, so we’re concentrating on the
worst cases and the chronic repeat offenders. Most of the body shop owners in this room run good, honest
businesses, so you may never see us
in your shop. But, for shops that are
operating without licenses or doing
anything fraudulent, we’re going to be
there to see you eventually.”

Rich Evans Films Pilot Episode of World Wide Car Building in Canada
Famed car builder and Autobody News
columnist Rich Evans returned to
Curtis Custom Designs and Radical
Garage in the Elmsdale business park
in Nova Scotia in late July. Much like
his trip in 2011, Evans built a custom
vehicle in a short period of time. However, this time, he brought an all-star
group of builders, and a camera crew
with him to shoot the pilot for a new
TV series.
The car in question was a 2004
H2 Hummer, which they planned to
lower the roof, turn it into a coupe,
and change the front end.
“We’ve got nine of the best
craftsmen from the U.S. that I’ve selected personally,” said Evans. “We’re
going to travel the world building cars
out of our comfort zone. The first stop
is Canada—we’re in an unknown
area, unknown garage, coming out to
Curtis Custom Designs. We’re challenging ourselves to build a vehicle in
10 days. We flew out here to build a
2004 H2 Hummer for Curtis—and
what we’re going to do is chop it,
make it from a four-door into a twodoor, build a front-end for it, and turn
it into a roadster. It’s something that’s

never been done before.”
When Rich arrived with his
group of builders, and they started sizing up the shop, and the Hummer,
Rich began to think that maybe they
had it too easy.
“I looked at the job, and I said ‘we
have too much talent,’ “ explained
Evans. “This is too
easy. So I was
challenged by a
local customer of
Curtis to build a
‘54 Chevy in the
same ten days. I
didn’t hesitate—I
Rich Evans
made my mind up
in about 30 seconds. I let my guys
know, and they were all for it. So we
now we’re building two cars in ten
days—two totally different cars.
“That’s what it’s all about,” continued Evans. “Getting the best of the
best under one roof, and all of us
learning off of each other—that way
we’ll get better. Really it’s the journey
of getting better at what we love to do,
and the passion and the challenge of
what we do. We all eat, breathe, and
live customizing.”

Evans feels as though this is a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for
himself and his crew—to explore different shop cultures, and to step outside of their comfort zone to work on
cars. It’s a challenge that he feels will
help everyone involved expand their
existing skill set, and add new skills.
“You always live for that best job,”
said Evans. “What’s happening here is
that we’re meeting up with a shop in
Canada that has a staff, and it’s really
U.S. meets Canada, where we all get together and build something cool. So
we’re learning from you guys, you’re
learning from us, and that makes for
great TV.”
Amongst Evans’ all-star team of
car builders is amateur builder Denny
Stewart. Stewart teaches high-school
auto body in a town of 200 people in
Missouri. Stewart worked with Evans
on builds 20 years ago, so Evans
brought him along to have the chance
to be part of a team that will hopefully
inspire his students in the future.
The inspiration for the show
came from the first trip Evans had
taken to Elmsdale in 2011—wherein
he built a Mustang in five days.

“When I left here last year, after
the media, the news, the car show, the
people—the Canadian car enthusiasts,
I got an idea,” said Evans. “I wrote
down a treatment, met up with a production crew, and really tightened up
what was written. What we’re doing
here has never been done before—
using top-of-the-line cameras on a reality show. What we have here is really
a perfect marriage for something new
and cool to bring to the industry.”
Currently the show is called
World Wide Car Building as a provisional title while it remains in production—chances are high that it could be
changed before airing, however.
“Curtis,” is what Evans answered
when asked what the inspiration was to
bring his show to Elmsdale over other
places in Canada. “I met Curtis at
SEMA—where we’ll eventually be
taking these two cars. That was five
years ago when I was a spokesperson
for Chicago Pneumatics, and he invited
me out to Nova Scotia last year. I came
out to do a project with him, and to see
what I can learn from Canada’s side of
the fence—I had a blast, so here I am,
back out one year later, and I’m back

for another car show, and I brought
some friends with me.
“I dig it here,” continued Evans.
“The greenery and the weather while
we’ve been here—I’m running on
about one-hour of sleep, but I still want
to get out and see your guys’ backyard.
It’s phenomenal, we went out shark
fishing not too far away and caught 15
sharks with the aid of a captain that
was very good at what he did, and very
knowledgeable. And the car enthusiasts here absolutely blow my mind.”
“It’s very slim,” said Evans when
asked about the equipment and product selection in rural Canada when
compared to the United States. “You
don’t have much of the same equipment or product, but the community is
great about getting together—it makes
the hospitality just phenomenal.
Everybody’s not geared up like we
are, we’re out of our comfort zone up
here, yet we’re still able to pull off the
impossible.”
Though the tools and products
and equipment may differ up north,
Evans believes that it’s the team and
local community coming together
around them that’s making this as easy
as it has been.
“It’s a situation of ‘use what you

have’,” explained Evans. “We want to
show people that you can use just
what you have. It’s a team, and it’s
about using what you have together;
and we really want to show that to the
audience. We really want to show people the nuts and bolts of our world—
and what drives people to do this. So
that when they see someone working
on a car, they can understand it a little
bit better. It’s fun, I like to say that
every suit-and-tie-guy wants to do my
job; and my job’s not even a job. I’ve
never worked a day in my life.”
“Absolutely I plan on coming back
in the future,” continued Evans. “I love
it here—it seems like it’s a once-a-year
deal, so hopefully we can come back
and do something bigger-and-better
next time. Every year it gets better. Last
time I was here for five days and I built
one car. This year I’m here for 10 days
and I built two cars; so maybe next year
I’ll come for ten days and build three.
It’s all about keepin’ it cool, so I hope
you guys invite me back next year, because I’ll certainly come back.”
Indian, Evans’ manager, and producer on the TV show also took the
time to speak with The Weekly Press
about the challenges of bringing a
Hollywood TV film crew to rural

Canada, and the changes in car culture
and product availability.
“It’s very intense,” said Indian.
“You’re up against deadlines; finding
product; finding out which place is
open, which place is closed; working
on the weekend when nothing is
open—like Sunday we were working,
and nothing was open. We needed materials, so people were coming out to
open their shops for us. So it’s pretty
cool—but it’s definitely a challenge.”
They plan on showcasing the
local community and various facets of
the local culture during each episode
of the show. This is to pay homage to
the areas that host them, alongside
hopefully inspiring the build.
“People dig Rich up here,” said
Indian. “The thing that I thought was
pretty cool in this area is the amount
of cool custom and classic cars. It’s really a big car culture here—I was impressed to be quite honest. It’s
something that’s expected in Southern
California, yet to come up here I was
really surprised to see them just on the
road—because each time you’re out,
chances are you’ll see one.”
During their tenure in Nova
Scotia, Evans’ crew participated in a
car parade to downtown Halifax, a

car show, and multiple meet-andgreet/autograph sessions, all while
continuing work on both cars.
“Curtis has got a really good shop
here, and a really good group of
guys,” said Indian. “People have been
really, really nice, and really accommodating. It’s definitely a place worth
coming to. I’ve never been to this side
of Canada, so I didn’t know it was this
much of a beautiful place.”
“I think it’s a great way to showcase Nova Scotia,” continued Indian.
“That’s why we want to incorporate the
cultural end of things. The local beauty,
and the local cultural is something that
we really want to incorporate into the
show. It’s almost like ‘No Reservation’
meets ‘Orange County Choppers,’ but
for cars. We just hope to keep building
off of it—it should be cool.”
Nova Scotia is where the pilot for
the TV show is being filmed, and despite pressure from other Canadian
shops to go film at their location, they
plan to make Nova Scotia the only
Canadian stop for the show.
“We want to spread it around,”
said Indian. “We want people to experience a lot of different places. It
might happen (where they will shoot
another episode in Canada), nothing’s

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out of the realm of possibility—I just
think it’s more of trying to keep it different. What we did in Nova Scotia
would be a lot different than what we
could do in, say, Jamaica.
“It’s early in the game,” continued
Indian. “We’re working with producers that are very busy. We have to time
it in a way that makes sense, otherwise
it’s not worth doing; but this stop was
a no-brainer. Rich had been here before
and had a great feeling about the place,
so he wanted to do it here first.”
They hope to air the show some-

time in 2013. Should it become successful, Evans plans to hopefully return once again in the future, with
more cars, less time, and more talent.
For more information on the progress
of the show, stay tuned to Evans’
Facebook page (Rich Evans Designs)
and keep an eye on the listing for the
Speed channel.
“The biggest thing is to do what
you love to do,” said Evans. “Do something new every day, and try to better
yourself. Really live life to its fullest—
that’s what we’re trying to do here.”

Hyundai Settles Airbag Lawsuit for Crossovers

Consumer rights law firm Hagens
Berman recently reached a settlement
with Hyundai for a lawsuit regarding
faulty airbags in the auto manufacturer’s
Sante Fe crossover vehicles. The lawsuit
alleged that airbags in some 2007-2009
Hyundai Santa Fe crossover vehicles
failed to deploy during certain types of
collisions.
The settlement allows owners to return defective vehicles if the company cannot repair them through a software
upgrade, Hagens Berman said.
Hagens Berman said Hyundai has

ordered a recall of roughly 200,000 vehicles in response to the lawsuit. The recall
is the latest in a series of recalls by
Hyundai, which have amounted to about
1.3 million vehicles since 2006.
The recall will occur even if the
court does not approve the settlement.
“We negotiated a settlement that is
very favorable to consumers, giving
Hyundai owners the ability to return their
vehicle if the settlement’s software upgrade does not fully solve the problem,”
said Rob Carey, attorney for Hagens
Berman.

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The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has released a mobile app to help guide
drivers on what information they
should disclose after an accident.
The association says the new
WreckCheck app (www.insureuonline.org/auto_page.htm) will help
prevent drivers from giving away too
much personal information, such as
home address, phone number or driver’s license number, that could lead
to identity theft.

Continued from Cover

PartsTrader

will affect profitability on parts purchases, additional administration time,
and will affect overall shop efficiency.
George Avery, Auto Claim Consultant for State Farm, stated “the pilot
is still being evaluated and State Farm
and PartsTrader are working to correct
problems and mitigate concerns.”
This new program would be part
of a shops Select Service direct repair

agreement. Since State Farms pilot test
announcement, this program has created strong controversy from both the
shop side and the parts supplier side.
Although shops and suppliers
have little control in how this program
will eventually roll out, there is a larger
issue to address. There has been a
strong commitment from the collision
side over the last few years to focus on
better business practices and stronger
efficiencies. At some point, the reality
sets in that this is as far as it can go.
Shops have worked hard over the years

to develop strong parts vendor relations
that benefit both sides. To implement a
new program that changes this could
hurt everyone involved. The CAA believes that shops know their marketplace and are working with the best
vendors available to provide quality,
safe parts for their customers. Up to
this point, nothing has come out to
show that the shop will benefit by participating in this program.
The CAA’s state executive board
feels that the current State Farm parts
See PartsTrader, Page 62

bidding program, although part of a
shops DRP agreement, takes away
from the shop’s right to manage the
efficiency and profitability of their
business and the overall operation of
servicing the customer. No matter
how you look at the current proposed
program, the shop will be the one to
adapt and figure out how to deal with
reduced profits, higher overhead, and

the loss of long time vendor relations.
In the end, shops make tough,
challenging decisions every day on
how their business adapts to changes.
Some shops will be faced with evaluating this new program and making a
business decision on how this fits into
their overall business model.
The CAA will continue to evaluate this program and provide members
valuable information.
For additional information, contact the CAA state office (916) 5578100 or check the CAA website.

New Website for Labor Rate Survey
Collision repair professionals have a new
tool when it comes to assessing labor
rates. International Research Incorporated has launched a website that allows
repairers to fill out surveys on labor rates.
The service is not associated with or
funded by any insurance company.
Repairers may fill out surveys
for free. There is a small annual fee to
view the results of the surveys. See
bodyshopratesurvey.com.
The survey site does insist on shop
identification, but only to ensure that

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each shop only fills out one survey and
that the submitted rates are included in
the correct geographic area. Names of
shops or individuals are never published.
Each month, the site allows shops
from a small number of states to participate. A full year covers the entire U.S.
Some may worry that the purpose
of such a site is to aid collusion. However, the site itself warns participants
not to discuss certain topics with other
survey participants, as doing so is a violation of certain U.S. antitrust laws.

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